


Click

by linguamortua



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Hackers, Alternative Universe - FBI, Anal Sex, Bottom Brock Rumlow, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Dating, Drunk Sex, Intercrural Sex, Jack Rollins Is Kind of a Dick, M/M, Online Dating, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Power Play, Rough Sex, Secrets, Sexting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-05 07:46:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 42,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5367026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linguamortua/pseuds/linguamortua
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brock Rumlow and his misfit group of hacker buddies are hard at work on a little something they like to call Project Insight. When they launch it, it’ll be the biggest and most scandalous data dump of classified information since Wikileaks. It doesn’t leave much time for romance, but his best friend Natasha’s been pestering Brock for ages to try online dating and meet someone nice. Someone normal. Why not? Brock’s pretty much exhausted his options on Grindr. The special someone turns out to be Jack Rollins, a six-foot-four biker with a certain rough charm and a penchant for rough sex who just happens to be the FBI cybercrime division’s newest hire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**From:** Crossbones crossbones@hydraconsulting.com  
**To:** Natashenka nat@blackwidowcam.ru  
**Date:** 20 June 2015 at 04:40  
**Subject:** philosophical 4am bullshit

_… I guess if I had to describe it, it’d be a combination of high-speed lock-picking, math, misdirection and really good spin. It’s not just one thing. You can be the best at the code of it but then what? Can you cover your tracks? Can you pick a target? Can you make it mean something? I really wanna get away from the Anonymous dramatics - you guys bought masks on Amazon, whatever, good fucking job smashing the system - but at the same time maybe we’re all a little drawn to the duplicity of it. (Bet you’re laughing right now and thinking I’m being dramatic, but look me in the eye when I see you on Thursday and tell me you aren’t a little bit the same, Ms. Russian Bride.)_

_Here’s what it is - I think it’s got to be in the service of something more important. If we’re not trying to change our corner of the world then this is all just self-indulgence and Insight is just an attention-seeking script kiddie game. I believe we’re doing something important and I know you do too so don’t be cynical with me. Bucky is too fucked-up to know for sure (sorry, I know you guys were a thing back in the day). I don’t know about Tony, but he’s a kid so maybe it’s not fair to judge him like that, he’s got his own stuff with his dad and expectations and the whole child prodigy deal._

_Anyway this is just a bunch of bullshit that’s coming into my head right now. I have had so much caffeine today. Please don’t email back and tell me I need to get laid because a) rude, some of us aren’t hot chicks and b) I’m totally going to do the dating site thing as soon as I finish up this dumb website design job._

* * *

 It was past midnight and the rain was hammering down outside, a summer squall that made for a pleasing white noise. The storm had been threatening all day, the air heavy and sticky, but now it had broken. The tight feeling in Brock’s skull that had dogged him all day had eased away as the air pressure changed, too. It felt good. He liked the rain. He lived downtown in an apartment above a takeout place, and the constant noise of a busy shop in the early hours of the morning was, for once, blocked out by the percussive sound of the rainstorm. Inside his tiny studio he had his own soundtrack in the hum and whirr of his computers and the standing fans which dispersed the endless heat they kicked out. The electronic hum of his server array and, over it all, the dubstep still coming from the headphones he’d temporarily hung around his neck. A pair of heavy black curtains shielded him from the street’s rainbow glare but they weren’t quite closed, and so he reached precariously out of his chair and tugged them together in the middle. The pink light reflecting off the screens disappeared. Massage parlours and takeouts, billiards halls and all-night groceries - this was his neighbourhood, cheap and lively and disreputable and never truly asleep. It suited him perfectly and besides, the rent was cheap.

The shape of his nights was always like this: sitting in his computer chair, bathed in the blue glow of his monitors and typing away furiously. He was cross-legged tonight, a soda bottle propped between his legs and one hand steadying it. The monitor cast an unearthly light across his face and the long black bangs hanging dark and spidery into his eyes. Behind him was the wreckage of his unmade bed, a futon layered unevenly in blankets and sheets. He would probably finish up here in a few hours and then, as usual, crawl into bed and sleep the day away until after noon. Sometimes a client might call him, but more likely he’d let the emails pile up and get down to work when the building quieted down at night.

If there was a benefit to suffering through regular person hours, Brock was yet to discover it.

He rubbed behind one ear where the headphones had been pressing into his skull and yawned. Website design wasn’t difficult for him but it was boring, and the client kept changing his mind in a series of increasingly-frantic emails. Fine: Brock billed by the hour and kept time sheets to prove it. There was so much else he wanted to do, though, and there were only so many times he could incrementally move headers and change fonts before losing the will to live. (Could it be more of a mint green? Could the font be classier, like a lawyer might use? What about pictures? Could Brock make the website play their advertising jingle?) Whatever. Brock made their stupid changes, hammering out the rudimentary strings of code and previewing the monstrosity he’d created. Gross. He stretched backwards and cracked his knuckles and his neck, rolling his head back on his shoulders with a groan of satisfaction. He skimmed back through the email chain and ran his eye over the website on the second monitor. Good enough. It ticked all the boxes. Inevitably the guy would find fault, but that was a problem for tomorrow. He sent a new link over and closed the windows he’d been working in.

‘Okay, Natasha,’ he muttered to himself, flipping his headphones back up onto his ears and adjusting them, fingers running over the raised skull motif. ‘You think I need to meet a nice guy and get laid, let’s meet a nice guy and get me laid.’

God, internet dating, though. It was kind of embarrassing, if Brock was honest with himself. Grindr was one thing - sometimes you just wanted to order a guy like pizza and get fucked, totally normal, not at all weird - but internet dating was levels of duplicity. Layers and layers. People got married from those sites. You had to get to know the guy, and date him like a regular person, and hope he wasn’t crazy or violent or into having babies. He clicked ‘sign up’ and checked his usual public username.

**The name hunnybadger is available!**

Good start. Birthday. Location. Gender. Interested in—

‘— An eight inch cock.’ Click. Men. Height, weight, blah blah blah. Photo was easy - Brock had a dozen of them. He picked out a good one, a black and white shot of him lying on his back in bed, looking up and back at the camera. Some guy had taken it with Brock’s phone in a play on cheesy boudoir shots, but it had turned out pretty nice. He’d gotten a lot of play off Grindr with that photo. He looked for a link to add more pictures. ‘Uh, no,’ he said at his keyboard. ‘No way am I paying you guys eight bucks a month for extra photos.’ What a racket. He could be rifling through their customers’ credit card details within twenty-four hours if he wanted. No way they were getting _his_ financial details, unless he could pay them in Bitcoin or something.

It took Brock almost an hour to fill out his profile, trying to make up for the lack of pictures by showing actual personality. He hadn’t written so many words together since he left school five years ago. It wasn’t easy. Practically his whole life revolved around his computer. Probably downplay that. What was he into? Movies, books, music. Normal things. His boxing classes, Chinese food, real coffee.

‘Dear potential dates,’ Brock said chirpily at his webcam, as if he was recording a video with an old-fashioned dating agency. ‘I’m just a regular guy looking for that special someone. I sit on my ass in front of my computer all day, doing menial coding tasks for chumps. Then, by night, I do a bunch of illegal stuff with my best friend Nat, who takes her clothes off for sad men on the internet. I like long walks on the beach and trying new things.’ There was no way to write a personal profile without sounding weird, like a PR person or a serial killer. Brock was pretty sure he sounded some combination of boring and stupid, but what the hell, at least he had okay grammar. He moved on. There were questions; they were much more fun.

What side of the bed do you sleep on?

Do you prefer cats or dogs? _Cats._

Have you ever defaced public property? Wow! Brock snickered and clicked ‘yes’. No hot cops for him.

Do you think you’d survive a natural disaster?

‘How is that even a yes or no question? What natural disaster, dude? Do I have to shoot zombies in the face or outrun a tsunami? Jeez, be more specific.’ He clicked ‘yes’ anyway - maybe they’d match him with some hot rugged guy who could chop wood and fix engines or something. He paused. Or maybe they _wouldn’t_. Maybe if you said you couldn’t survive on your own, they found you a hardcore outdoorsy guy with a lot of muscles. And if you could, you got stuck with some office dweeb. Maybe he was overthinking it a bit.

He answered all their questions and finally, as the clock crept towards two in the morning, pressed ‘complete’. Immediately the site returned him a page of matches, with a cheery header message.

**Brock, see your matches now!**

All right. All _right_. He rubbed his hands together, cracking his knuckles in turn, and then rescued his warm soda and finished it off. He tossed the bottle into the bin and stretched out his legs, flexing his feet against the static prickle of blood rushing back into his toes. With a well-practiced hand, he started flicking profile pages open in new tabs. The pickings were not rich. Clint, 36, had nice arms but he sounded like a human disaster and had a very visible black eye in his profile photo. He apparently divided his time between New York and DC and was in ‘leasing and local property management and stuff’. A realtor. Brock closed the page. What kind of ren faire weirdo was into archery, anyway? A dark-haired dude on the next profile was more promising, even if ‘Fox’ sounded like a porn star name. Brock scrolled. ‘Fox’ had declined to type anything about his job or his hobbies or basically anything about himself, other than the fact that he was ‘interested in women, men and people of undetermined or non-binary gender, both human and extraterrestrial.’ After that, his profile just went off into a long rant about appearances being deceiving and conspiracy theory stuff. Wow. Instant no. Brock loved a good government conspiracy story, but shapeshifting aliens were so not his thing. Plus he looked kind of like Brock’s math teacher from high school, which really should be hot in a kinky way but was actually creepy.

‘Is this because I said I’d defaced public property?’ Brock asked the website pleadingly. ‘Are you punishing me?’

A sad-eyed lawyer with a pouty sort of face who wrote that he was ‘a practicing Catholic and a power bottom,’ a perky reporter for Buzzfeed who inexplicably had seven pet tarantulas and a skinny little blonde in law enforcement who described himself as ‘220lbs of awesome in a 120lb body’. Brock copied all the profile links into an email and, in a sudden fit of pique, sent it to Natasha with the subject line ‘all your ideas suck and I hate you’.

Time to take romantic destiny into his own hands, then. He found the advanced search box and started filling in his own set of parameters. Within 25 miles, because he didn’t have a car and no way was he getting on a Greyhound bus for some dude. Tall, definitely, and between 25 to 40 years old. Okay, 40 was pushing it a bit, but sometimes with age came experience, right? Prefer muscles. No kids. Dogs were pushing it, but Brock selected ‘pets okay.’ Now that he knew that some people liked to keep tarantulas as pets he was frankly more inclined to compromise on the dog issue. Just no cable-gnawing puppies. Was ‘looks good in a suit’ an option? It should’ve been.

‘Please have a job,’ Brock quietly begged the universe as he selected from clunky pull-down menus, wrinkling his nose when they occasionally refused to choose the right option on the first click. Amateur hour. ‘Please don’t be an axe murderer, or a gun murderer, or basically any kind of murderer. Know how to fuck, don’t have stupid hobbies, bring me take-out. I dunno, be a night owl, be into horror movies.’ If Brock ever set up his own dating site, which he might have to do just to bring some kind of competence to the playing field, he would definitely have better ways of filtering people. Filter by food choices or by sleeping habits. ‘Where’s the box to exclude all conspiracy theorists? That should be a thing.’ He searched.

Forty-six matches. That was more like it.

‘No, no, no. Maybe. Why do you have a spiderweb tattooed on your face? No. Maybe. Ew, no. Hey, _hello_ there.’ That last was to a guy in a black polo shirt with ear protectors hanging around his neck and a rough-hewn, handsome face. His hair was slicked back and he was smiling at the camera, a sharp, satisfied smile with a lot of teeth. Like he’d just won at something. Brock was into it. The guy’s profile revealed an unpretentious sort of man with innocuous yet incredibly cool hobbies - motorcycles, shooting, Hammer horror films. ‘Motorcycles,’ breathed Brock, suddenly feeling very awake and very into the idea of online dating. The prose in the profile was brusque and direct. What he liked to eat, where he liked to go on vacation, his favourite movies and books. How he liked dogs. He sounded no nonsense, like he knew what he wanted.

‘Looking for someone who’s got their own life and interests,’ wrote jackalope1979. ‘I’ve got my shit together and I want you to be the same way. I like my partners to be low maintenance and straight talking. Sometimes I have to work weekends or take overnight trips so I don’t want to babysit you. I’m into people who like to share their hobbies and teach me something new. Always enjoy talking bikes and guns, so if you’re looking for a shooting or riding buddy then hit me up, platonic or otherwise.’

He whistled, reading. And then, at the bottom of the page, he saw a little red sentence:

**You and jackalope1979 have an 8% personality match. Oh dear!**

Oh dear, indeed. That was fixable, though. What were those numbers but tiny, changeable values plugged into mediocre, hacked-together code? Brock bailed out of his chair and commando-rolled across his bed to the kitchenette, tucked away in its own little alcove. He spooned instant coffee into a mug with a faded logo for some software company and boiled his kettle. Two heaped teaspoons of sugar, some coffee creamer and a hastily-consumed can of pineapple later, and he was back in his chair. He wriggled his fingers like a magician and settled down, poking through source code for the parts he wanted. It wasn’t particularly difficult.

He’d been doing it since he was a kid, spending long, lonely hours in his basement room learning the intricacies of code. Learning how to crawl inside the mind of the person who wrote it and figure out how to pick apart what they’d written. It had been so much easier to retreat into scripts and languages, parsing and compiling, bugs and firewalls and backdoors, than to make his way up the basement stairs and deal with his stepdad. Or, later, to deal with his mother’s drinking, and her crying. Coding had been an escape and hacking a way to feel powerful and knowledgeable. It wasn’t like he didn’t know what shaped his psyche and how. These days he looked at it as a cost-benefit analysis: lost, one healthy childhood. Gained: the ability to creep inside almost any system he could possibly desire to access, with the right tools and a bit of time.

For this job, all he needed was a good piece of out-of-the-box software and a handy list of scripting vulnerabilities, available from one’s friendly local sketchy internet site. In half an hour he’d gained access to the backend database and was scrolling through it, hunting for the parts that generated matches. He loved this kind of work; it required enough of his attention to be a fun challenge, but it was predictable enough that he could enter a sort of Zen calm, a flow state in which the answers to each problem seemed to flow directly from his fingertips and into the keyboard. As he commanded, so did the code obey. A heady thrill, that kind of power. He probed. There was jackalope1979’s account number, and there was Brock’s own, so if he plugged _that_ number in like _so_ then… bingo. All that remained was to change the output value to 100%.

Wait. No. Far too obvious. Make it… make it 92%. Nice. And then the notification, because all the computer magic in the world was useless if the guy didn’t know that Brock was here, being a perfect match and waiting for his message. So: if match percentage is greater than 90%, then send out pre-generated email to each person in the match. Brock finished up and, sure enough, in a minute his email account flashed in its tab.

**You have a new match!**

Prying into other people’s code was a lot of fun, but Brock’s eyes were gritty and heavy and he had more clients to appease tomorrow. It was tedious work, often, but it paid well and it was quick and efficient. A carefully-selected professional persona and a sturdy client-facing site allowed him to spend a handful of hours a day making money with absolutely no need to meet people face-to-face, divulge personal details or self-promote particularly hard. People came to him these days. He opened up a bunch of torrents and set them running, checking them off against a notepad list as they started. Had to get all the new superhero movies to keep him awake while he worked. Time waited for no man. As he stumbled out of his chair and switched off his screens, dawn was already drawing a pink line across the horizon. He made sure his curtains were going to stay closed, drank a glass of water, pissed and cleaned his teeth. He stripped, dumping his clothes into his laundry basket and grabbing a fresh pair of boxers to sleep in. Honestly, he’d rather be naked, but that one unfortunate incident with the landlady and the miscommunication about his lease and the potential new tenants had really put him off full nudity for a while. Rolling onto the bed on his belly, he scooped up his phone from the nightstand where it was always on charge. Natasha would be awake - she always was, at this time.

‘Natasha?’

‘Speaking.’ Her voice was husky and rich down the line.

‘Hey, it’s me. You’ve still got your phone sex voice on.’

‘Sorry.’ Her voice abruptly changed, becoming more clipped, more natural in register. ’What do you want?’

‘Just calling to say that Project Find Brock A Hot Boyfriend is underway.’

‘You’re sounding incredibly smug. What did you do? You know Grindr hook-ups don’t count, right?’

‘Oh, you know. Brought my awesome intellect to bear on the weaksauce infrastructure of your average dating site.’

‘How tacky. Traditionally you’re supposed to use your sparkling personality to catch a man.’

‘How would you know?’

‘Mm, true. But I don’t do it for free. Go to sleep. We have a meeting Thursday and I need a sensible ally against Bucky. He’s blowing up my phone with the crypto nonsense.’

‘Ugh.’

‘ _Ugh_.’ Natasha rang off and Brock pulled the cool sheets over his legs. He let himself drift for a while, inventing voices, message, meetings. Inventing jackalope1979 a pleasing personality. Playing, constructing little scenes, little worlds. Natasha, for all her gentle mockery, was right. Brock liked to have people around him he could trust and rely on. It didn’t come to him easily, for so many reasons, but when it worked he relished it. His mind brushed over all the Tinder matches, all the little assignations on Grindr. Meeting people at their place, because his little tech-filled sanctum was too precious to let anyone into easily. Maybe this time would be different. He drifted away to sleep, one arm flung over his head and his mouth open, the persistent humming of his server lulling him away as it always did.

As he slept, his phone buzzed across the nightstand. An email dropped into his inbox.

**You have a new message from jackalope1979!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Memorandum**   
**To:** Alexander Pierce  
**From:** Nick Fury  
**Date:** 18 June 2015  
**Re:** Interdepartmental transfer: Rollins, J. J.  
_Alex, I’m sending you over an agent called Rollins. He pulled off a great catch in the Gregory case and he’s due his step up. We’ve got no suitable position for him here. He’s not your usual type - too rough around the edges - but he’s got grit and he’s smart. Take him on and I’ll call us even for that little issue with the Senator._

* * *

**Memorandum**   
**To:** Cyber Division, all personnel  
**From:** Pepper Potts on behalf of Alexander Pierce  
**Date:** 20 June 2015  
**Re:** New member of our team  
_We have a new team member joining us today from CID. Jack Rollins recently distinguished himself by tracking down and arresting notorious drug smuggler Miranda Gregory, known in the press as the First Lady of organised crime. He comes to us with fifteen years of experience in front line law enforcement, first with the police and more recently as a field agent with the Bureau. We expect that he will be a very valuable asset to our team. Please join Assistant Director Pierce and myself in welcoming him to CD._

* * *

It was a ridiculous piece of sentiment, but something about walking through the doors of the FBI's cybercrime department felt to Jack like arriving for his first day of high school. The department was only two floors up from his old workplace, and yet the contrast could not have been more sharp. A recent refit had given the hallways and offices a slick, modern air. Gone was the wood panelling and the heavy desks, and in their place stood open rooms with lean, minimalist furniture and vast windows to let the light in. Jack’s old office had been boxy and low-ceilinged. Here, each office was spacious and came with automatic blinds to be drawn down for privacy. Sound-dampening glass and soft carpets, diffuse lighting and elegant plant arrangements; it was like another world. Jack had come up through the police then applied for the FBI without really believing they’d take him on. And yet, he’d been accepted and he’d excelled during his twenty weeks at Quantico, nailing the physical targets, performing admirably in marksmanship and scoring decently well in the classroom to boot. Still, being able to fire a gun and having the dogged determination to see a case through was very different from being the first line of defence against cyberterrorism and internet fraud.

Jack moved through the hallways and nobody stepped out of his way as they would usually do. His height and bulk made no difference here. He was the outsider. A beautiful but severe-looking woman with her hair in a tight, dark bun raised her eyebrows at him as she glided past, a tablet in one hand. In her high heels, she was tall enough to look him in the eye. A skinny blond man stared at his tie and shoes as if they were offensive, even though he looked like his own suit was hanging off shoulders as thin as a coat-hanger. Agents looked like they’d stepped out of a fashion magazine - well, what Jack imagined fashion magazines probably looked like. Downstairs in CD, an agent could be called out into the field at any time and they dressed accordingly. Up here, the office life evidently lent itself to more daring sartorial choices. One guy wore a bowtie, even.

There were so many women upstairs. Jack, trained for fifteen years to notice details about crowds, about people, saw kitten heels and pencil skirts, silk blouses and curled bobs, brunettes and blondes and redheads, manicures and lipstick. Heard light, female laughter. The Bureau had its share of female agents, of course, many of them legendary, but in CD they must have made up almost half the personnel. And they were young. Everyone was young. At thirty-five, Jack guessed that he was probably older than a significant proportion of the agents he was seeing. That made sense. Technology was leaping forward and the Bureau needed people who could keep pace. He’d heard that they’d been recruiting some smart youngsters straight out of high school for the coding work. Kids fighting terrorists over the internet. He wondered how many of these agents could hold their own in the field. He wondered if they’d ever have to.

Jack was under no illusions about his place in the world. He couldn’t code or work up clever programs and firewalls. He didn’t really understand how online financial fraud or hacking worked, except in the general sense. Somewhere in the labyrinthine FBI intranet was an extensive list of Quantico training programs, and he made a mental note to pick a few out and use up some of his untouched training days on figuring this stuff out. At the moment, he was miles out of his area of expertise and, potentially, out of his depth. This was a political promotion and it would be up to him to navigate the currents up here, to figure out how the power flowed before his failure made a good excuse to knock him back downstairs again. He’d done a good job and this was the poisoned apple they’d handed him in reward. You didn’t get far in the FBI if you couldn’t sense the political currents, and even Jack could tell that everything about his promotion was fishy as hell. His instinct was to keep his head down, figure out the lay of the land and, somehow, survive in this job for more than six months.

* * *

The realisation that he was swimming in dangerous waters had come to Jack gradually. The day before, he had sat on a raised medical bed while a porcelain-skinned, red-headed doctor with her bobbed hair tucked behind her ears had given him a thorough medical examination. There could be no secrets from his employer when he worked for the FBI, but Jack had felt more exposed during the exam than his boxer briefs and lightweight paper tunic would suggest. The doctor’s manner had been smooth and professional, but she was too knowing, too shrewd to be just an MD. Her hands had visible gun callouses and the scars and nicks of someone who’d worked in the field. Surely no doctor would have two sunken knuckles on her right hand, or a very visible knife slice across one palm?

‘Agent Rollins,’ she said, entering the room and logging into her computer with brisk keystrokes. ‘Physical for an interdepartmental move.’

‘A promotion,’ Jack confirmed. ‘CID to CD.’ The doctor raised her pale eyebrows in a gesture that spoke volumes of doubt.

‘Congratulations. I’ll be completing your medical examination today, then I’ll pass you on to occupational health and psych.’

‘Occupational health?’ Jack was confused.

‘They’ll need to discuss the potential risks in your new role,’ the doctor said, with an admirably straight face. ‘The Bureau frowns upon carpal tunnel syndrome.’ She turned back her sleeves and donned a pair of gloves. The wheels of her chair squeaked as she rolled across to the bed and depressed the pedal to bring him down to her level. ‘I’m going to start at the top and work down.’ With one cold hand on his jaw, she tilted his head and began shining a light in his eyes.

‘The interrogation portion of the exam?’ Jack said, amused.

‘It keeps me entertained. Follow the end of the pen without turning your head. Good.’

‘This what you do all day?’ Jack asked as she moved his neck through its range of motion and felt his thyroid.

‘No. Sometimes the bodies are dead.’ Her smile was a brief flash of teeth. ‘So you’ll be working with Pierce?’

‘I will. I only know him by reputation.’

‘A diplomat and a gentleman,’ said the doctor under her breath as she listened to his breathing through a stethoscope, but Jack had a distinct note of disapproval in her voice.

‘A politician.’ Whatever Nick Fury had been like to work for - and he wasn’t exactly a people person - at least he hadn’t been a politician. Except, he must have been in some regard, because otherwise Jack wouldn’t be here.

‘He is that. I’d say this looks like an electrical burn.’ She probed the lightning-bolt scar down his collarbone and chest with her fingers.

‘It was. Someone dropped the end of a live wire on me.’

‘Did you have an EKG at the time?’

‘Yeah. Should be in the files.’

‘It should be, but it isn’t. No problems with arrhythmia or chest pain?’

‘None.’

‘Getting yourself electrocuted. Some people will do anything for a promotion.’

‘Wish it’d been that easy.’

‘The Gregory case, if I’m not mistaken.’

‘You’re well informed,’ Jack grunted as her icy hands landed in the vicinity of his ribcage.

‘Coulson was the supervisor on that case, wasn’t he?’ Her voice was casual. Jack suspected she already knew damn well that Phil Coulson had presided over that particular case with an iron fist. Coulson was a superb agent - one of the best - but he was savagely protective of cases he considered his own. It had been a problem. Fury had had to step in. In retrospect, Jack had played his hand poorly, barrelling down on a lead with too much fervour. It had worked, but the conversations in Fury’s office afterwards had almost made Jack wish it hadn’t.

‘Yeah.’ His knee jerked as she tested his reflexes.

‘I’m going to draw some blood, and I want you to hand a urine sample to the nurse on the way out, and then we’re finished here.’ Before he could say anything, she’d stuck the needle into his vein. ‘Incidentally, did you ever cross paths with an Agent Rogers?’

‘Kind of,’ Jack said again. ‘One of the cyber guys. We consulted with him for a kidnapping case but I never met him. He just got moved up to Special.’

‘Did he, now,’ she said. It wasn’t a question. She handed him a plastic jar with a yellow lid, stripped off her gloves and stood up. ‘I’ve got all I need,’ she said. ‘You’re free to get dressed.’ She gestured towards the little anteroom covered in a curtain where he’d changed into the paper gown earlier.

‘Thanks,’ Jack said, standing up awkwardly in the tunic that barely preserved his modesty and shuffling towards the curtain.

‘A word of advice,’ said the doctor, sounding almost lazy. ‘It’d be better to take the pay cut and go back to the police than be someone else’s catspaw.’

‘That medical advice?’ Jack said, eyeballing her.

‘No, but it might still keep you alive.’

A curious doctor, even for the Bureau. Her advice was delivered with the weight of experience behind it, as if she were his mentor or teacher. As he dressed, he thought about her gun-calloused hands, and the scar at her temple, and the faint air of bitterness hanging around her like the smell of smoke after a shoot out. He filed her away in his brain.

* * *

The conversation had echoed around in his mind as he scribbled out the answers to his psych evaluation and made polite responses as a bland-looking OHS woman lectured him about the importance of ergonomic computer chairs. It dogged him on the way home, where he eschewed his usual tinkering in the garage for an early night. He kept replaying it on the way to work in the morning and so, here he was on the Tuesday morning, walking through his new workplace and trying desperately to figure out who was out for blood, and whether or not it was _his_ blood they wanted.

First order of business was a short meeting with Pierce. Alexander Pierce was an aging, stately man with strawberry blond hair and a dark grey three-piece suit. Who wore three piece suits to work? Well, as an Assistant Director, Pierce could probably do damn near whatever he wanted. Jack stood awkwardly in front of the vast glass desk in the office while Pierce eyed him with the disdain of a housewife disciplining a dog who’d pissed on her clean floor. Pierce’s distaste was clear the moment Jack walked into the room. Once again, the lingering look at his clothing. Once again, the raised eyebrow that he’d been moved to the Cyber Division. Once again, the sense of wrongness, of not belonging.

‘I’ll be thrilled to see what you make of this position, with your very rich and varied history in law enforcement,’ Pierce said smoothly, once the introductions were over.

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Jack, keeping his voice bland.

‘It impresses me that you’re willing to take on professional challenges.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Jack replied, privately amused by the little ripple along Pierce’s jaw.

‘You’ll need some further training, of course, just to bring you up to speed.’

‘Absolutely, sir.’

‘I’m putting you in Special Agent Rogers’ section for the time being.’ Jack tried to stop his ears pricking up at the sound of the name. Pierce moved a small paperweight on his desk a few centimetres to the left. ‘He’ll apprise you of how we like to conduct investigations here.’

‘Look forward to it, sir.’

‘You’re dismissed, Agent Rollins,’ Pierce said crisply, turning away to the window, and Jack mustered up all of his acting ability and smiled earnestly at the Assistant Director’s back.

‘Thank you, sir. Thrilled to be working with you.’ He closed the door behind him and wiped his sweaty palms on his trousers.

‘Mm, faux pas,’ murmured Pierce’s secretary without looking at him.

‘’Scuse me?’

‘Don’t show fear,’ she said, and she turned in her chair to regard him with a cool gaze. Jack shoved his hands into his pockets instead. ’I sent out a very nice memorandum about you this morning,’ said the secretary, her red ponytail swinging charmingly. ‘Please don’t torpedo your chances of living up to it on your first day.’

‘Feel like I’ve fallen into a different dimension,’ Jack confessed, leaning on her desk.

‘Welcome to hell.’

‘That bad?’

‘For a bunch of desk-bound nerds, CD love to play politics, Agent Rollins.’

‘You’ve got the advantage of me,’ Jack said.

‘Pepper Potts.’

‘The Pepper Potts? Sam Wilson used to rave about you. Said you were an intel genius. What’re you doing playing typist for Pierce?’ Pepper gave him a vicious little smile in response, showing her neat white teeth, and didn’t reply. Fair enough; Jack could grok that. Seemed like everyone up here had their reasons.

‘It’s classified,’ she said after a short pause. ‘But I’ll give you some advice, one former cop to another.’

‘Sure.’ Jack leaned in, eager to hear advice from Wilson’s much-lauded ex-analyst.

‘Your belt should match your shoes, Jack.’ She flashed him her smile again and swivelled her chair back to her computer.

* * *

In the mire of politics and mind games, there was a single point of refuge for Jack: CD kept somewhat regular lunch hours. At half past midday, Jack was summarily dismissed by the technician setting up his accounts and he fled, taking the elevator down to the familiarity of the lobby. He ducked through security and marched down the street three blocks, his long legs eating up the distance, to his favourite hole-in-the-wall lunch spot. He didn’t have to order here. There weren’t that many options. Almost every day, the diminutive Korean grandma behind the counter would spoon him out a box full of whatever was hot, filling and eye-wateringly spicy, and Jack would obligingly overpay and cram himself into one of the tiny chairs to eat. Today he was lucky. Not only was there a seat, but one of the two tables was free. Jack sat with a sigh, popped the lid of the box with one hand and bit open the paper wrapper on his chopsticks. He pulled his smartphone out of his pocket with his free hand. Lots of emails; two days’ worth, in fact. Not much else. He resisted junking up his phone with games and Instagram and inane crap like that. He also refused to connect his work account to his regular phone. Separation, that was key. Kept him sane. He flipped through his inbox as he ate.

Jesus, the noodles were hot. His eyes blurred with tears for a moment and he sniffed, wiping his nose on the back of his hand.

‘Pretty good today, huh, Jack?’ The old woman was leaning against the counter and grinning over at him. Jack replied with his mouth half full, giving her the respect due by saluting her with a chopstick.

‘You’re a queen, Jeong-ja.’

Junk mail, junk mail, bank statement. A note from his mother asking about his first day at the new job. Junk mail. A friend looking for a bike part. Jack deleted and replied, deleted and replied. All the way down the bottom, timestamped three in the morning, was a cheerful message from the dating site he’d signed up to months ago. Not much use, as far as he’d been able to tell. Marginally better than barhopping. Jack hated dating, and the Bureau frowned upon fraternisation, so that was a ball ache all round. In more ways than one. Internet dating had seemed like an okay strategy, except that he had better things to do with his evenings than dick around on the internet and, apparently, so did everybody else on the goddamn site. Women never contacted him. Occasionally he got a message from a man. Porn stuff. Lots of weird porn stuff. A couple of guys interested in his shooting set-up, or his bikes.

This was good, though. The website was doing what it was supposed to do, finding him matches. Finding him people. He pressed the link with his thumb. _Let’s take a look at hunnybadger_ , he thought to himself. The page loaded. Well, shit. That was all right. A black and white photo front and centre, of a young guy lying in bed. Big eyes - dark. High cheekbones. His chest was out of focus but it looked like he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Jack scrolled with his thumb as he shovelled noodles into his mouth. Better check the profile details. Spambots liked to hook you in with cute pictures. The guy seemed reassuringly real, though. His profile text was a breathless combination of run-on sentences, random profanities and quips. Jack could almost hear the voice in his head as he read.

_… stuff I’m into is, I don’t know, computers mostly, and a lot of music so I hope you like dubstep and techno and vintage house because that’s what I play a fuckload of, except for when I’m running or boxing cause the beats are a little fast. Boxing is another thing I do (hey to the guys from the gym, if you’re reading this, and also if you’re reading this wow, I probably did not know you were into men, good straight acting, bro). I’ve been boxing since I was a teenager, almost ten years, and I’m just about welterweight (if you care) if I eat a lot. Oh yeah, food, so…_.

Jack couldn’t help the little quirk of a smile that happened, as if by magic, as he read the text. If it was a spambot, it was the weirdest goddamn spambot he’d ever seen. So fine, the kid was cute, he wasn’t so young as to be shameful, and the website said they had a 92% match. However _that_ was calculated. At the top of the page was a tiny blue envelope icon, and Jack tapped it and thought for a minute. He tipped up the box of noodles and poured the last bit of sauce right into his mouth. He had just about enough time to reply to this message, and then it was back to the high tech hellscape that was his new job.

_92% seems like good odds,_ he typed slowly. _Let’s get a beer and see if the internet got it right. I used to box back in the day so we’ll have something to talk about. I work downtown and finish between 5 and 6 Monday to Friday._ He read it through. It was good. No bullshit. He pressed send and unfolded himself from the chair, manoeuvring out of the small crowd gathering in the tiny take-out place.

Almost immediately after he started walking again, his phone vibrated in his pocket in a single, short buzz. He pulled it out and opened the email notification.

‘Fucking hell, kid,’ he said under his breath. ‘Someone glue your hands to a laptop or something?’

_Sure,_ the guy had replied, _if you give me a ride on your bike. There’s a bar on 48th St called Marko’s, meet you there at 7 tonight maybe?_ He’d added his phone number and his name - Brock. Jack confirmed, took a deep breath, stuck a piece of gum in his mouth and walked back into work. It was shaping up to be a hell of a first day.

* * *

48th street was a little way out of downtown, off in the weird, cheap, arty area of the city. Jack drove around for a while looking for the right spot. Eventually he parked up outside a dingy-looking 7-Eleven and walked it, hands in pockets and enjoying the warm evening air. Smelled a bit like garbage and fried food around here, but it was good to be out in the city, anonymous, away from the machinations of his new department. By the end of his work day he’d barely been able to see straight, let alone think straight. He couldn’t figure out Pepper, why a smart girl like that would end up writing memos for Pierce. He was yet to meet Special Agent Rogers, who was apparently too busy to make time for him. And the doctor - what the hell was going on there? Worst of it was, how could he trust the information that she’d given him, when it seemed like plenty of other folk would be happy to see him fail?

He pulled up sharply outside a narrow door with a battered sign above it. This was the place, then. Unobtrusive, no neon lights like the rest of the street - no wonder Jack missed it from a moving car. It looked like a good old dive bar, but there was an enticing smell of cooking meat wafting out from the doorway. When he went inside, ducking under the low lintel, the smell intensified and his stomach growled at him. The bar was long and narrow and low-ceilinged, with old-fashioned wooden booths and a surprisingly clean counter and floor. Some kind of guitar music was playing, a noodling, pretentious prog rock solo, but the quiet hum of conversation almost drowned it out. Jack approved. He scanned the room and there, at the end of the bar was the - was his date. Was Brock. Nursing what looked like orange juice and resting his chin on his fist as he stared at the TV screen. Jack walked over and cleared his throat.

‘Hey. You Brock?’ The kid turned around, looking like some kind of model in the half-light of the bar. His hair was all shaved down at the sides and swept back long at the top. When he stood up and shook Jack’s hand, his skin was smooth, and when he spoke, he had a paint-stripping New York accent and a surprisingly deep, husky voice.

‘Yeah, that’s me,’ he said, and grinned up at Jack with all the insolence of a teenager. His profile had said he was in his late twenties, but if he was a day over 24 Jack would walk right into Pierce’s office and rub his naked ass on the desk. ‘Did you bring your bike, big guy? His eyelashes were so long and dark.

Jack was deeply and thoroughly fucked.


	3. Chapter 3

**Memorandum**  
**To:** Phil Coulson  
**From:** Steven G. Rogers  
**Date:** 21 June 2015  
**Re:** J J Rollins training documentation  
_Phil, either this guy’s training documentation has been lost in the shuffle, or he literally has never taken a course in anything but firearms. If any records exist, send them over to me. If they don’t exist, you’re buying me a beer on account of you being a huge troublemaker. This new hire might not be a total waste of my time - he can apparently fire a gun so we’re sorted if any of the interns act out - but it’s going to take months to get him up to speed. I want to know who you paid to make this happen, and who I can pay to make it _go away again_. I do _not_ have time for this!_

* * *

**Memorandum**  
**To:** Steven G. Rogers  
**From:** Phil Coulson  
**Date:** 21 June 2015  
**Re:** J J Rollins training documentation  
_Sorry, all purchases are final! He is a good agent, loyal to the Bureau, a credit to us all, etc. Don’t blame me - it was all Fury’s doing. I just threw the idea of a promotion out there and it… happened. Funny, that. On a serious note: he’s smarter than he looks. Not by much, but keep a latch on it around him. He’s a weirdly good judge of character and he knows how to find a pressure point._

* * *

 Jack ordered himself a good European beer and gestured to a booth.

‘Want to move?’

‘Sure,’ shrugged Brock, and slid off the bar stool to claim the end booth. Jack joined him, shuffling along the green faux leather seats and putting his beer on a cardboard mat.

‘You a regular here?’ Jack asked, wondering how it was that a pretty young guy knew about dingy dive bars. Brock looked out of place. He was easily, casually stylish in a fitted black t-shirt and jeans; his trainers were probably expensive and he had a brown leather jacket carelessly balled up on the seat next to him. Black and brown weren’t supposed to go together, Jack thought, remembering Pepper from earlier. But what the hell did he know? Jack figured that whenever he thought something looked kinda odd, that was probably fashion.

‘I live around here. And it’s a pretty good bar. My friend Natasha likes it here, ‘cause they do a lot of vodkas.’

‘Are you drinking orange juice?’

‘It’s a screwdriver,’ Brock said haughtily. The word sounded obscene in his mouth; perhaps it was supposed to. Jack chuckled.

‘What does your-friend-Natasha think of you adulterating good vodka with orange juice?’

‘Oh my God,’ said Brock, ‘it’s my dirty secret. When she’s around I drink rum and coke.’ He fished the orange slice out of his drink, setting the ice cubes rattling, and sucked on it. ‘But you’re a beer guy?’

‘I’m a beer guy when I have to drive home.’

‘ _Did_ you bring the bike?’

‘Not today, kid,’ said Jack. ‘Sorry.’

‘So tell me everything about yourself,’ Brock demanded with a wave of his hand. He leaned to one side and pulled an absurdly large phone from his pocket, placed it carefully on top his jacket and then leaned against the wall, putting one foot up on the bench seat.

‘Everything? You don’t want a bit of mystery?’

‘Tell me almost everything about yourself,’ Brock amended. ‘We’re a ninety-eight percent match, let’s, like, _explore_ that.’

‘Ninety-two, wasn’t it?’

‘Was it? I didn’t pay much attention.’ Brock gave him an artful little smile that Jack was not for a moment taken in by. Didn’t need Quantico training to figure that out.

‘Right. Did you get a bunch of those questions?’

‘Yeah! Have _you_ ever defaced public property?’

‘Maybe when I was a kid,’ Jack mused. ‘Not recently. They frown on that in my line of work.’

‘What is your line of work?’

‘I work for the government,’ Jack said. He was so well-practised at that line now that he’d probably pass a polygraph with ease. The thing about his job was, it made people edgy. Anxious. Tell some decent, normal guy that you work for the Bureau and their wheels immediately start turning. Jack’d had one guy leave in a hurry. Another started to freak out about experimenting with drugs in college. People got twitchy about it, as if Jack could walk into work and pull up a file on everything they’d ever done. Ridiculous; it wasn’t like he worked for the NSA. So that was the half-truth he told - that he worked for the government. He worked in an office. He was an analyst. That was true. The essence of it, anyway.

‘Good excuse.’ Brock finished his drink and then tipped an ice cube into his mouth to crunch on.

‘Want another one?’ Jack asked, indicating his own empty glass. ‘My round.’

‘Yeah,’ Brock said. ‘Same again.’

Brock quizzed Jack about his bike. He demanded to know what kind of car Jack drove. He brushed his fingertips over the collar of Jack’s shirt to see what it was made of. He made Jack show him his driver’s license so he could laugh at the photo, and Jack held it up with his finger prudently obscuring the address. Brock declared that it was ‘actually pretty hot, what the fuck’. He made Jack tell him about his dating site photo, and his guns, and the shooting range, and had he ever fired, like, a sniper rifle or something? Upon learning that Jack knew a lot about firearms, he proceeded to rattle off all the guns in _Counter Strike: Global Offensive,_ and made Jack tell him about them. He asked if Jack had ever played _Counter Strike_. Or _Halo_. Or _Call of Duty_. No, no, yes, Jack obediently replied. Brock told Jack about his gaming rig, and his server set-up, and his peripherals, and didn’t Razer stuff suck? And wasn’t it overpriced? When Jack admitted he had no real clue about videogames, or consoles, or keyboards, Brock yelled, ‘ _what?!_ ’ so that half the bar turned round to look at him, and then switched to a rapid-fire explanation of why the original Deus Ex was one of the finest stealth-action games ever made.

His animation was so earnest, so funny. Jack answered his endless question with more patience and candour than he would ever have thought himself capable of. Brock’s mind bounced from one thing to another, slowing down to press Jack for an opinion and then dashing off again about advertising, or takeout, or public transit, or horror movies.

‘You’ve never seen _Tetsuo_?’ Brock said, almost knocking his drink over. ‘It’s a cyberpunk classic. It’s _so_ gross, it’s great. We should watch it sometime. We should watch it tonight, I think I have it on my hard drive.’ He leaned over and grabbed his phone, lighting up the screen, and turned it to Jack. ‘Look, it’s not even midnight.’

‘You don’t have to work tomorrow?’

‘I work from home,’ Brock said, with a dismissive wave of his hand. ‘C’mon. It’ll be fun.’ His smile turned eager. ‘We can always put the movie on. We don’t have to _watch_ it.’

‘Jesus,’ Jack laughed. ‘You always get like this on dates? Just throw it out there?’

‘Only when I really want to get fucked,’ Brock said, laughing back, a little drunk and easy with it. With a herculean effort of will, Jack managed not to inhale the last mouthful of his beer. The bar was emptying out now; the bartender was stacking up clean glasses and eyeballing the remaining patrons with a kind of detached weariness. Jack was feeling pleasantly buzzed himself. He might have to get a cab home. Or. He wanted to say yes to Brock, who was wilful and pretty and just drunk enough to do something stupid.

‘Come over to mine,’ Brock said suddenly, pleadingly, almost blurting it out. ‘If you want. It’s a couple blocks away.’ Despite all his flirtation, his ballsy play for a man ten years older than him, Brock seemed conflicted. His eyes flickered to Jack’s and away, in a telltale sign of nerves, but his pupils were dilated and everything else about his body language was eager. Jack put his glass down very deliberately and looked straight at Brock.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Yeah, sure.’

* * *

 It should have been a short walk, a couple of blocks. If Jack had been on his own, he’d have walked it in five minutes. He wasn’t alone, though, and Brock was pressed against him, still flirting, handsy and laughing with bright eyes and a flush in his cheeks that had nothing to do with the temperature of the night. Halfway there, he tried to inveigle a hand up Jack’s shirt, and Jack slung an arm around Brock’s shoulders and abruptly tugged him sideways into an alley, where he could shove Brock up against the wall by his biceps and, finally, kiss him. He squirmed in Jack’s arms, not trying to escape but trying to get closer, opening his mouth and trying to arch up into Jack’s body. Jack held him against the brick wall and kissed him thoroughly from a pace away, enjoying the whimper that slipped out of him whenever Jack applied just a hair more pressure. He broke away, his mouth sweet with orange juice and alcohol. It was so easy to kiss him like that and know exactly what he’d want in bed. He was so transparent.

‘You gonna be able to wait until we get home?’ he said, his voice husky in his own ears. Brock’s eyes were closed, his head tipped back against the wall.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Maybe.’ He grinned. ‘Do it again, though.’

‘You gotta wait,’ Jack said, letting go of Brock’s arms. He walked to the end of the alley, jerked his head north. ‘Coming?’ Brock jogged after him, along the block and right to a slightly dingy side street with a massage parlour and a takeout on the corner. He jingled his keys out of his pocket and let them in the door, and then led the way up winding back stairs. It was dark, but Jack had to fight the urge to reach out and grab the perfect sway of Brock’s ass in his tight jeans. At the top of the stairs was a green door, and Brock opened two locks and shoved it open with a tiny squeak. He flipped on the light and gestured Jack in.

‘It’s not a palace, but it’s okay,’ Brock said nonchalantly, as he led Jack into a small studio apartment filled with computer equipment that probably cost more than the building. To the right was a kitchenette with a table and two chairs, and a half-open bathroom door. To the left, a low bed piled with blankets and pillows, a bunch of computer equipment and a long desk with four screens and two keyboards. Jack raised his eyebrows.

‘You weren’t kidding about doing computer stuff, huh?’

‘I dabble,’ Brock laughed. He shoved some laundry into a corner with his foot, kicked his shoes off and dropped his jacket on the computer chair. ‘You wanna use the bathroom, get a glass of water, whatever?’ Jack nodded, slipped into the bathroom and pissed quickly. Splashed his face with water, chewed some gum. As soon as he was done, Brock took his turn. When Brock came out, Jack’d kicked off his shoes and dropped his wallet and phone into one of them for safekeeping. Brock was shirtless, his belt and socks off.

‘Smooth, kid.’

‘Jack,’ said Brock, crowding up against him and grabbing his shirt in both fists. ‘I like talking to you, a lot, but I don’t want to talk to you _right now_ , if you get me.’

‘I get you,’ said Jack, and, catching him around the waist, chucked him unceremoniously down onto the bed. Brock huffed out a laugh as he hit the mattress and reached out to try and grab Jack. ‘Nice try.’ Jack planted his hands and lowered himself down over Brock. He didn’t have a lot of moves. Jack knew that about himself. He wasn’t smooth, or quick with a line, couldn’t do a whole lot of seduction. But he knew what it looked like when someone wanted to get fucked the way he liked to fuck them, and that was Brock right now; open-mouthed and breathing hard, liking Jack’s hands on him, liking getting manhandled. It was like a flashing red beacon, and Jack felt himself getting warm, getting hot, getting hard.

He took a few leisurely minutes to remind himself how Brock kissed - keen and demanding, with his hands running over Jack’s arms and chest. Brock hooked a foot over the back of Jack’s calf and ground up against him, pulled Jack down closer to him, begged for it without saying a word. He wasn’t going to get it yet, though. The bed smelled like Brock, of a deodorant reminiscent of high school locker rooms, and his hair product, and the salt-smoke smell of his skin. Jack breathed it in, face to Brock’s neck. He pulled Brock’s head back by the hair and kissed along his jawline, down his neck and into his clavicle.

For a fleeting moment, Jack looked down at Brock, flushed and blissed out beneath him with a kiss-red mouth, and wondering how the hell he'd ended up here. When Jack wanted to get laid, he could usually trawl a bar pretty successfully. Who knows why he'd idly decided to sign up to a dating site - it wasn't as though he spent hours on the internet - but he was thanking his past self now. Brock's eyes fluttered open and he licked his bottom lip, his fingers curiously moving under Jack's shirt and tugging his white undershirt out of his pants.

'Why're you stopping?' he said lazily, finally getting his warm hands on Jack's skin and exploring up his sides. Jack didn't answer, just leaned down to kiss him again. One by one, Brock opened the buttons on Jack's work shirt, and Jack let him, and then let him push the shirt off Jack's shoulders and onto the floor in a crumpled white heap. Jack had to kneel up to strip off his undershirt, and Brock whistled at him.

'Yeah, yeah,' Jack said, expecting a flippant comment, but Brock just kept staring, running his hands over Jack's body like he'd never seen a man before.

'Who shot you?' Brock asked, circling a fingertip around the scar on Jack's hip.

'Bad guy.'

'What's this?' Brock traced the jagged scar down Jack's collarbone.

'Knife wound.'

'This too?' There was another rough patch of scar tissue on Jack's arm and shoulder.

'Came off my bike.' He touched his own chin, his eye, showing Brock the damage. Brock half-sat up, kissing the scar on Jack's collarbone and on his shoulder. He smouldered up at Jack through his eyelashes for a moment and then bit at the muscle of Jack's chest, tempting fate, daring Jack to fight back. Jack growled at him, making him laugh, and they roughhoused for a minute. 'You want me to bite back?' Jack asked him, shoving his thigh between Brock's leg and feeling Brock hard against him.

'What if I do?'

Jack sucked one of Brock's nipples into his mouth and dragged his teeth over it. Brock twisted in his arms and whimpered. The sound went straight to Jack's dick. He reached down and palmed Brock through his jeans, then tugged at the waistband.

'Take 'em off.' He pulled off his own pants and kicked them aside, socks all balled up inside them. Brock was arching off the bed to fight his way out of his tight jeans, and he dragged his boxers off with them so that his cock sprang free, all the way hard and curving upwards. As soon as Jack'd seen Brock with his shirt off, he saw that the guy must wax; he kept himself trimmed everywhere. All smooth and tanned. 'You clean?' Jack asked casually, glancing down at Brock's cock.

'Was last time I checked,' Brock replied. 'I'm pretty careful. I got stuff.' He fished under the edge of the bed and brought out a half-empty box of rubbers and lube - the good kind. 'You?'

'I gotta get checked for work,' Jack said. 'Clean result last week.' And if Brock couldn't prove anything, neither could he. Jack wasn't going to fuck the guy raw, but you wanted to know that a man could look you in the eye and tell you he got his piss tested properly. Couldn’t be ashamed of that kind of thing. And with that, he bent his head and ran his tongue over the end of Brock's cock. Brock sucked in a breath and tensed up off to the bed. Jack grabbed the lube and coated his fingers. 'Yeah?'

'Yeah, do it,' Brock said in a rush, his legs falling open easily. Jack didn't wait; he slid his hand up Brock's thigh and higher, rubbing at his ass and slowly pressing them into his hole. Brock was loose and relaxed from the alcohol and the messing around. He opened up for Jack, exhaling in a long, low moan as Jack stroked him and curled and twisted his fingers. Feeling generous and wanting to hear the sounds Brock made, Jack tongued at his cock, sucked at the head. Brock panted and gasped, his leg muscles tight against Jack's forearm and his back arching. The lightest touch and Brock was eager. He responded to everything Jack did like parched flowers under a rain shower. Jack had three slick fingers in Brock, and the good salt taste of Brock in his mouth when he eventually realised that Brock was getting far too close to coming. He pulled off, and Brock made a desperate noise. One arm was thrown over his head and the other over his eyes. He already looked wrecked. Jack wiped his hand on the blanket and reached for the box of condoms, rolling one on with ease. He watched Brock's heaving chest for a moment.

There were so many ways that Jack could fuck him; dizzying, heady possibilities, none of which Brock would stop him doing. On his back, like this, hands pinned to the mattress and head thrown back on the pillows. On his hands and knees, with his ass in the air and Jack’s hand on the back of his neck. Pressed down on the mattress on his front so Jack could whisper in his ear and bite at him. Or - Jack rolled and pulled Brock on top of him, settling himself back with a pillow under his head. Brock got the idea pretty quick, lining himself up over Jack’s cock with his lower lip caught between his white teeth. With Jack’s hands right under his ass he couldn’t go far, but he tried; tried to slide down onto Jack.

‘Ask nicely,’ Jack grinned at him, wanting to hear Brock say it in his New York drawl.

‘Aw, c’mon,’ said Brock, his pupils all wide and dark. ‘Fuck me. I know you want to.’ Jack rubbed the head of his cock up against Brock’s ass to distract him.

‘What’s the magic word?’

‘Please,’ breathed Brock, squirming. His cock was hard and flushed. ‘Jack, please.’

‘That’s real nice,’ Jack said, and drew Brock down by the hips, pressing the head of his cock in.

‘Oh,’ Brock said, as if he was surprised, and he braced his hands on Jack’s chest. Jack slid in a little further, slowly, like a game, seeing how much he could draw it out. He watched Brock’s face, to see each flicker of pleasure and each time his breath caught from the stretch of it. Brock was biting his lip again; Jack got mean, pushed in another inch and made him feel it. He wondered what Brock would look like with Jack’s hands around his throat and had to stifle a groan. Jesus. The kid was tight and sweating and torn between wanting it slower and wanting it all. If Jack wasn’t careful, it’d all be over way too soon. Brock was breathing in short, sharp pants, his head back and his fingers digging into Jack’s chest. Now that he was leaning on his arms, Jack could see the muscles in his shoulders and chest standing out; he was more muscular than he looked in his figure-hugging black clothes, lithe and strong. He thrust up a little, the last little way, until Brock was sitting in his lap, his firm ass in Jack’s hands. Jack shifted his leg to get some leverage and then fucked up into Brock’s ass so that he made a shocked, hungry sound.

‘Move,’ Jack told him and Brock obliged, sliding up and down, riding Jack with a delicious roll of his hips. The sight of it alone was enough to keep Jack in dirty fantasies for the next six months. Jack moved to meet him, his hands tracing the muscles in Brock’s thighs and up along the crease of his hip. His knuckles brushed Brock’s cock and drifted away again, teasing without really trying. Blood-flushed, his mouth red, Brock had his eyes closed and his mouth open. Every time Jack’s hands came near his dick he made little, excited intakes of breath, arched his hips forward trying to catch a touch, an iota of friction. Brock's hands were running over Jack's biceps, his shoulders, his face. Brock tugged at Jack's hair and scratched his short fingernails over Jack's skin. He was so wound up. He was so noisy. Jack sat up, back against the wall, grabbed Brock's hands and pinned them in the small of Brock's back, bear-hugging him and restraining him in one. It dragged a raw moan out of Brock - yeah, he was into this. It was bad for Jack, real bad, knowing that he could manhandle Brock and the kid would just take it, through lust or curiosity or downright recklessness. With Brock's wrists in his hands Jack had more leverage, could fuck him harder, vicious and unrelenting. Brock's moans got louder, higher. He didn't stop when Jack kissed him, just kept whimpering into Jack's mouth.

‘Think of the neighbours,’ Jack told Brock, getting right up close and saying it softly into his ear, breathing it over his skin. Brock moaned through his teeth. Up above a takeout like this, Jack wasn't even sure if there were neighbours to hear. There didn't have to be. It was easy to get Brock going just by implying that people could hear. From the dark flush on his cheeks, Brock liked the idea that someone might be listening in.

With the harsh rasp of his own breathing loud in his ears, a low counterpoint to Brock's sharp, high moans, Jack nipped at the tender skin of Brock's neck and fucked him until his thighs and stomach were burning from sitting upright. Brock's cock was rubbing against Jack's belly, wet and warm and pulsing with need. He was squirming, almost, trying to get a hand free to touch himself, the friction not quite enough.

'Please,' Brock said, sweating and desperate. 'Please, I wanna--' Jack huffed out a laugh, pulled Brock closer and ground up into him, pressing their bodies together. Brock's eyes rolled back in his head and his body tensed, his back arching; he was tightening up around Jack's cock, so close to coming. Brock was shaky and overstimulated, and he whimpered as Jack fucked him, his hands flexing in Jack's grip and his lower lip caught between his teeth. It didn't take Jack long with a sweet, whining Brock in his lap; he felt his orgasm in his belly, in his nipples rubbing against Brock's skin, in his throat. He let it happen, pressing his face into Brock's shoulder and groaning through it in a long rush.

'Jesus, fuck, kid,' he said against Brock's chest. Brock was still gasping and grinding down on Jack, trying to get himself off while Jack was still hard. Needy and so turned on on that he didn’t even seem able to speak and ask for what he wanted any more. Jack spat into his hand and worked it between them to stroke Brock, looking up into his face as he came with his face twisted as though it hurt. And then catching him as he slumped, letting Brock’s weight bear them both down onto the mattress to lie there, sweating and shattered, their hearts hammering in time.


	4. Chapter 4

**From:** Natashenka nat@blackwidowcam.ru  
**To:** JBB yasha@wntr.com  
**Date:** 22 June 2015 at 11:27  
**Subject:** Are you going to make me beg you?

_I made the appointment in a different name. There’s no paper trail. It will bill through my work name. Please go._

* * *

 Brock came slowly awake to the mid-morning sun filtering in through the crack in the curtains. He'd pushed the covers off in the night and the air was warm on his naked skin. He was hazy with sleep and almost floating; a luxurious, relaxed feeling. When he stretched, he found that he ached deliciously. Jack. That'd been it. Jack and the bar and the alley and the bedroom. Brock rolled onto his side, expecting to come up against Jack's solid bulk, but beside him there was nothing but a dip in the sheets and a dented pillow. Brock didn't want to dwell on the little stab of disappointment he felt at Jack's absence. He pushed himself to his feet and squinted at the green glow of the clock on his nightstand. 10.30am. Early for him, especially after the night before. He shuffled to the kitchen for a glass of water and a piece of toast.

Jack had probably gone to work, he told himself. Even if he'd just fucked off, that wasn't exactly unusual in Brock's life. It didn't do to be clingy. Brock was used to guys leaving - why make a fuss? Except this time, it stung. Brock leaned up against the counter and rolled his neck from side to side, stretching it out. He examined the bruises on each of his wrists, dark fingermarks and two livid thumbprints. It hadn't hurt at the time. It hadn't been anything but achingly good. He bent down to examine a sore patch on his neck in the shiny silver toaster and saw a neat bite mark on his skin. He shivered.

Over on the nightstand, his phone buzzed. Brock flung himself down on the bed on his belly, breathing in the smell of sweat and sex and Jack. It was Natasha - what was he doing, was he still asleep, had he forgotten that they were meeting up today? _Nothing, no, no_ , Brock replied hastily, and then opened his email. The usual bullshit: clients, junk, ads. Brock's heart stuttered in his chest when he saw Jack's name.

 _Looked for pen and paper but couldn't find any,_ Jack wrote in his terse, direct style. _You were passed out - didn't want to wake you but I had to leave for work. Last night was fun. Let's do it again sometime._

‘Not exactly a love letter,’ Brock said to his inbox. Still, he couldn’t ignore the little frisson of excitement that Jack’s email gave him, nor the relief that followed it. He had to bury his face in his pillow and pretend he wasn't grinning.

* * *

 ‘Well?’ said Natasha meaningfully when she opened the door to Bucky's apartment and let him in.

’Well, what?’

‘Never mind, I have my answer.’ Natasha touched the side of her neck and raised her eyebrows.

‘I don't trust you.’ Brock knew that she'd be able to wait ten minutes, tops, before she starting wringing details out of him. Natasha lived vicariously through other people's exploits with men.

‘Who kept you up late?’ Tony yelled from the other room.

‘You're a bad friend,’ Brock accused Natasha. She shrugged.

‘You were late. And I couldn't be bothered to come up with an excuse for you.’

‘I made her tell,’ said Tony with his usual wide grin. His hair was sticking up at the back.

‘Can we get on with it?’ Bucky said. ’I really don’t care about whoever you were fucking off Grindr last night.’ And then to Natasha, ‘did you lock the door?’

‘Of course,’ Natasha said coolly. She was always cool with Bucky these days. Often, she was the only person who could defuse him.

Bucky’s apartment didn’t lend itself to comfort. It was strictly utilitarian. Brock saw Natasha’s hand in the odd item - a red blanket over the battered sofa, tinned vegetables on the open shelves in the kitchen, a little bookend with a carved owl - but mostly Bucky didn’t seem to have bought anything with comfort or style in mind. His furniture was jammed into the corners of the room, which had confused Brock for a long time until Natasha had succinctly told him, ‘sight lines.’ Now that Brock knew, he couldn’t _unsee_ it, the way that Bucky would be out of the way of the windows wherever he sat down. They sat on a motley collection of seats - Natasha and Tony on the sagging sofa, Brock on a dining chair that kept him at an uncomfortable angle. Bucky slouched against the opposite wall, looking pale and tired.

‘Okay,’ said Bucky, coming to life a little. He rolled his neck until it cracked. There was a lithe, dangerous grace to the way he moved. Bucky wasn't into men, but Brock sometimes thought that if Bucky had swung that way, that he'd be unable to help himself. He was solid and strong and decisive, just the way Brock liked. Bucky's blunt, square fingers rubbed at his vertebrae and Brock watched, still feeling a little warm from the night before, not quite come down.

Jack had been an intoxicating experience and Brock's skin felt electric from it even hours later. Later, he would email Jack. He'd ask to hook up - meet up - again. His imagination flicked through a series of images, one after the other with no pause and no particular order. There was the bike. Jack's bike. That was on Brock's goddamn bucket list. Could you fuck someone over the back of a motorcycle? There had to be a way. Or a bar again, alcohol and anonymity making poor judgement easy. Or the Caribbean place near Brock's house, where they had hot food and cheap beer and deafening music and the hot press of bodies. He imagined Jack eating jerk chicken, tearing it apart with his teeth, lip curled back. He imagined sucking pepper choka off Jack's long fingers, the way the capsaicin would burn on his lips and tongue. He wondered if Jack licked his fingers when he ate. He didn't know for sure, but he couldn't imagine Jack not liking spicy food. It seemed so very him. The bite and burn of pepper and spice and the cold, merciful wash of beer afterwards. Brock remembered Jack sucking on a slice of lime the night before. And his bourbon. Strong flavours, bright and sharp and unforgiving.

‘Brock,’ Natasha said with an air of irritated repetition. Bucky snapped his fingers a couple of times in front of Brock's face. He startled out of his daydreaming, realising that he was thumbing over the screen of his phone with a caressing touch, back and forth, back and forth. Shoving his phone in his pocket, he shook away the hot, claustrophobic memory of Jack pinning him down and plastered an expression of calm on his face.

‘Yeah. Here. Miles away, sorry. What were we working on?’

‘We were trying to work on the VPN issue, if you've got the time for us,’ said Bucky, pacing, wound up.

‘I don't think,’ said Brock, despite Natasha turning her murder face on him. ‘I don't think there's an issue.’ Bucky's nostrils flared.

‘We've been through this,’ he said, his jaw tight. His words came out strained, clipped. Contradicting Bucky was a great way to get an earful or a fist to the face, but Brock's blood was up for so many reasons today. He smiled up at Bucky, letting his grin split his face.

‘Walk me through it again,’ he said insolently. Next to him, Tony had gone very still. Bucky was just about the only person that Tony wouldn't sass from here to eternity. Tony was small and skinny, still not fully come into his adult growth yet.

‘It could be a deliberate trap,’ said Bucky with exaggerated patience. ‘Tony said he got an administrator password for the VPN. No two-factor authentication, nothing stopping us walking right in. Doesn't that seem too easy to you?’

‘No,’ Brock shrugged. ‘I do it all the time. People are lazy, passwords don't get changed, shit doesn't get patched. Google, copy and paste, easy. Guaranteed this whole system is just a shitbox that nobody's bothered to keep updated.’

‘It seemed legit,’ Tony said. ‘The password.’

‘It always seems legit,’ Bucky snapped. ‘That's how they get you.’

‘Nobody's out to get you,’ said Natasha. ‘You or us. You know that.’

‘Ninety nine percent of this shit is social engineering,’ Brock said, yet again. That concept was something that Bucky struggled with. The notion that people were careless, ignorant and just straight-up dumb with their passwords, instead of being part of some conspiracy. Bucky was still messed up over his deployment, Brock got that - how could you lose an arm and part of your skull and just carry on like nothing had happened? But still. He needed to be in therapy, or something. That thing he did where he assumed the government was watching him all the time? Creepy as hell, and really fucked up to live with. Didn't make it any less annoying for Brock, of course. ‘Ninety nine percent of it is stupid people who are easily manipulated. Tony knows how to do that shit, he talks a good game. The password works. There's no catch here, we just did it the smart way.’

‘Thinking we're doing something the smart way,' said Bucky through gritted teeth, ‘is a great way to-’

‘Not become paranoid shut-ins with-’

‘We should move on,’ Natasha interrupted, in that almost bored tone of voice she liked to adopt when tensions ran high. ‘There are other things we need to address.’

‘Yeah,’ piped up Tony, ‘there's the, uh, there's the guy? Who contacted me? Do we want him? Are we interested?’ Tony was constantly plugged into the internet and had a vast and often dubious network of contacts. Allegedly, one of them was connected to the FBI, a possibility that evidently thrilled Tony to the very core. Brock was doubtful, himself; Natasha disinterested. Bucky, predictably, wanted nothing to do with them.

‘No,’ said Bucky, scowling. ‘Could be a sting.’

‘Could be the real deal,’ shrugged Natasha. ‘I’m sure between the four of us we can come up with a way of verifying this person's information.’ Her phone beeped and she swiped at the screen to unlock it, swiftly composing a response and sending it. Nobody said anything about it; Natasha always had a few men she was stringing along. They took work. ‘God, what a creep.’ She wrinkled her nose.

‘Aren't they all creeps by definition?’ Brock asked. 

‘Yeah, but this one's especially creepy.’ She let her mouth twitch into a little smile. 'He'll end up bankrolling my kitchen refit, though. I think I'm going to go with the red and silver. It’s got that 1950s Americana feel but it’s sellable. If I want to move it won’t ruin the property value.’ She held her smile, gazing benevolently into middle distance for a moment. Clearly picturing the new kitchen.

‘If you're so into manipulating men on the internet,’ Bucky told her shortly, ‘you can deal with this so-called whistleblower.’

‘Sure.’

‘Carefully.’

‘I’m always careful,’ Natasha said, frost edging into her voice. Through the archway that led into Bucky’s largely-disused kitchen, Brock could see the wall clock. They’d been sitting there half an hour and done nothing. That happened a lot. Not for the first time, Brock wondered how much easier the whole business would be without Bucky. But it had been Bucky’s brainchild, and for better or worse he was the most committed to seeing things through. Brock closed his eyes for a moment and let the previous night wash over him. Imagined going back home, lying on his bed and letting himself replay his date with Jack and its aftermath. Jack was a distraction, God. In the background, Bucky snapped something at Tony, who whined back.

‘… botnets or something,’ Bucky was saying as Brock tuned back in. ‘That wouldn’t be super-hard - or at least, not super-hard for me so, like, kinda hard - and we’d be way less traceable. Even Brock could set it up.’

‘Wow, thanks,’ said Brock, but without any real sting. Tony was tactless but not malicious.

‘I guess that would do,’ said Bucky with bad grace. And so it went, on and on, Bucky listing off his complaints and the rest of them trying to solve them. Brock found himself simmering with an unusual amount of resentment. Sure, he wanted to get home and work on his share of the project. His phone felt heavy in his pocket, though. Jack’s email practically called to him. The wall clock crawled forward. They kept talking.

* * *

‘So,’ said Natasha, as they walked back through the quiet streets to her little duplex nearly three hours later, ‘are you going to see him again?’ Brock pulled out his phone and showed her the email.

‘He wants to see me,’ he said, feeling oddly shy about it. ‘I haven't replied yet.’

‘Mm,’ she said. ‘Don't look desperate.’

‘Even if I am?’

‘Especially if you are.’

‘Since when do you give relationship advice?’

‘I don't. Usually. But I know a thing or two about keeping a man interested.’

‘No offence, but it’s hardly the same—‘

‘Stop talking.’ Natasha pushed her hair out of her face and gave Brock a sharp, annoyed look. ‘I know what you're thinking.’

‘Fine,’ said Brock, putting his hands up defensively, still holding his phone. He changed the subject to the only topic that could reliably make an annoyed Natasha talk. ’Bucky's not okay, is he?’ She and Bucky had been together a while, before he was deployed. There were hints of shared experiences years ago, reasons why they couldn't truly leave each other alone. Reasons why Natasha would drop everything to see him, and why Bucky would listen to Natasha when he was raging at everyone else.

‘He's getting worse,’ Natasha said, glancing away.

‘He needs to see someone, right?’

‘Good luck making that happen.’

‘If anyone can, it's you.’ Brock looked hopefully across at Natasha. Her lips were drawn tight and her brow was furrowed. If Natasha was worried, then it was serious. Her serious issue to solve, probably alone.

There were lots of things about Bucky that Brock, given half a chance, wouldn't have wanted to deal with. He was volatile and moody, utterly unpredictable in nature. Anything could set him off at any time. He'd once watched Bucky vault a table in a bar and glass some guy for idly rapping his fingers on the table. He and Natasha had had to drag him away, yelling and flailing with his prosthetic arm. He would keep the smallest and most insignificant facts secret, and then casually tell someone he hardly knew how he'd lost his arm, providing them with a shocking, intimate level of detail. He was a sensationally good cryptographer, a top-notch security expert and the mastermind behind Project Insight. He was also prone to going missing for days at a time, just up and leaving with no way to contact him. Brock knew he had nightmares, knew he drank too much. Knew there was more that Natasha wouldn't talk about and that Bucky wouldn't admit to. But the four of them - Brock, Natasha, Bucky and Tony - they were in it together now, and there was nothing that any of them could do to change it. In between their little group, they had the perfect set of skills, the perfect plan and, soon, Insight would be perfectly executed.

To try and alter things now would be far too risky. All Brock could do - all any of them could do - was to keep his head down, do the work and hope that Natasha could keep Bucky stable enough to see the project through.

‘He works for the government,’ said Brock quickly, letting it all come out in one rush so that he didn’t bottle out at the last minute. ‘The guy from last night. Jack.’

‘Jesus,’ said Natasha. ‘Doing what?’

‘He didn’t say, exactly,’ Brock said. ‘Don’t tell Bucky.’

‘I wouldn’t.’

‘It probably doesn’t mean anything, but-’

‘Yeah,’ Natasha said, interrupting. ‘Yeah, no, I get you.’ She slid one pink fingernail down her cheek, dislodging a couple of hairs stuck in her lip gloss.

‘It’s not like he’s trying to infiltrate us or anything. It’s just a date. An internet date.’

‘I wasn’t going to suggest it was.’ Natasha’s intonation told him as clearly as anything that she knew Bucky would lose it over this piece of intelligence. Jack could work cleaning the break room at a police station and Bucky would imagine the worst. He was like that. ‘Not a word from me, anyway.’

‘I don’t really want to tell anyone,’ Brock mused, ‘but it feels dishonest not to.’ He frowned. ‘I want it - him - to be private.’

‘Early days,’ said Natasha, with a hint of caution in her voice.

‘I know that.’ He said it too fast, a bit mean. Not that he could ever stop Natasha figuring shit out. She knew how to press people’s buttons, could read you like a book even if you thought you’d given her nothing at all to go on. Maybe she just knew men. Or sex. They walked on in silence for a while. She didn’t disentangle her arm, but she didn’t make conversation, either. Sometimes she was like that. Private. Didn’t fill the air with random chatter. Brock let the conversation lapse, too. He wanted to talk about Jack, tell her about him, his grin, his battered good looks, the faint air of amused cynicism that hung over him. But he also didn’t want her to have that power, the power of knowing. Or the strain of having to hide more shit from Bucky, who had fuck-all impulse control.

‘This is me,’ said Natasha, unlinking her arm from his. She didn't invite him in. She hardly ever did - she liked her own space and her privacy, too. He gave her a peck on the cheek, a quick goodbye, and then turned for home himself.

Past the tidy duplexes of Nat’s quietly respectable suburban neighbourhood - past its neat little restaurants and boutique stores and mid-range hotels. Up the hill and along the rise that let him gaze down upon half the city, along the crumbling pedestrian route and up and across the rad on the overpass. Closer to the city now, to its smell and noise and bustling life. In the middle distance Brock could see the centre of power, the hub of it, its great, towering financial buildings and phallic monuments. He let himself smile, wondering what the ripples of Insight might do. Brock was old enough and experienced enough to understand the inevitability of power protecting itself. It wouldn’t be a great political coup. That didn’t happen anymore. But there were cracks, weaknesses. Power was not absolute. In his way, he would challenge corrupt authority. In his way, he would shine a light on the unethical, clandestine practices of government. It made him feel good - feel powerful. Feel confident.

Buoyed by his daydreaming as he walked, he pulled out his phone and started composing a reply to Jack.

 _Hey,_ he began, then deleted it. Hi. Hey. Hi Jack. How’re you doing? What’s up? Brock wrinkled up his face in frustration, his brief flush of determination ebbing away as quickly as it had come. It shouldn’t be so hard to be easy with someone in email when you’d been so easy with them in person. Approaching honest, even, at least in the things that he could be honest about. Brock had let Jack into his home, his bed. This morning when he’d been showering it had felt like perhaps he should be able to see the change in him on his skin. Written in a bruise-purple, perhaps: _I allow this man to know me._ Brock had stopped walking without even realising it. He’d fetched up on a corner, by a lamp post and a green dispenser promising the local newspaper - empty this late in the day, and badly dented from a car’s impact. He leaned on it and looked at his phone again, re-reading Jack’s email as if trying to divine arcane secrets from its curt text.

Feeling anxious and peculiarly unsure about the whole thing - because really, when had he ever had a hard time emailing a guy? - Brock picked up his phone again. He tried to imagine what he would say to Jack if he were here in the room. What he wanted him to know. If boundaries and common sense and proper dating etiquette didn’t exist, what could he say?

_You’re so god damn sexy, I feel like I’m losing my mind. How did you know exactly what I wanted? You’re easy to talk to. You’re easy to listen to. What’s the catch?_

It was almost dinnertime. Jack would be done with work and would probably even be home by now. Brock looked at his phone, considered calling. His back ached from the night before, and from Bucky’s stupid, cheap chairs. He meandered towards the bathroom, shedding his clothes one-handed and turning on the hot tap to run a bath. On a whim - he usually showered. Nothing was the same today, though. He set his phone down on the edge of the sink. There was plenty of hot water today. Brock threw in some lurid green shower gel which foamed up appealingly, and tentatively clambered into the bubbles. He groaned as he lay down, and let his eyes slide closed. He wondered if Jack’s long legs would fit in the cramped bathtub. The mere thought of Jack in there with him (behind him, holding him, hard against him) was enough to chase away his fretful irritation at the day. It got him a little fired up. He grinned, and stretched up for his phone, suddenly inspired.

 _Last night was fun. Let's do it again sometime,_ Jack had sent him, with curt satisfaction.

 _I want to,_ Brock wrote back. _But this is super inconvenient timing. I’m in the bath right now._ He sent the email. An overture felt so much easier than real honesty. And it wasn’t a lie. Perhaps it was the subject matter, or perhaps Jack was better at checking his phone when he was at home, but it didn’t take long before an reply arrived with the usual chiming sound.

 _I hear cleanliness is next to godliness,_ Jack had sent, and reading it Brock could hear the sardonic delivery, the hint of flirtation. Jack’s deep voice in his head. His cock twitched at the thought. He arranged himself in the water, feet resting up by the taps and bubbles distributed to cover what little modesty he had, while suggesting a lot in bare stripes of hip and thigh. A quick shutter-snap sound; he took a photo and sent it, no context offered. Hopefully none required. _Sinner,_ responded Jack almost immediately.

 _You think I should spend more time on my knees?_ Brock hit the send button, relaxed back into his bath and, with his free hand, reached down under the water. This? This was uncomplicated. This, he knew how to do.


	5. Chapter 5

**Memorandum**  
**To:** J J Rollins  
**From:** Steven G. Rogers  
**Date:** 17 August 2015  
**Re:** Notice of completed training  
_This is formal confirmation from your supervisor that you have completed the requisite CD courses. You’re now - technically - qualified for the job. I want to start transitioning you over to some of the paperwork for a current case. You’ll also be doing background checks and going through financials, which shouldn’t be new to you. Report to Helena and she’ll hand over the files._

* * *

Two months passed in a haze of work and play, of systems and training and politics and of Brock, always of Brock. Jack was occasionally compelled to check himself as he looked at the young man who was becoming increasingly central to his days. It didn't quite feel real. Life had taken on a sense of slippage, as if Jack wasn't properly awake for it all. To be adrift, unmoored like this, was rare for him. He couldn't say he savoured it and yet it added a distinct savour to things. Got his blood up. Made him work for everything. Made him focus. He found himself almost enjoying the vicious undertow of politics at work as he learned to dissemble and evade and give half-answers to Rogers and Pierce. It was a strange dynamic for him, all intellect and secrets and half-truths and no certainties. Usually being out the field had a grounding effect. No time for daydreaming when people were shooting at you. Without that, Jack was finding that he only felt truly present in his own skin when he was touching Brock. He created excuses to touch Brock. He found reasons to be around him.

Jack had failed his first psychological evaluation for the FBI. That happened more often than people thought. It was usually a result of nerves - performance anxiety. People fucked up questions that they'd usually ace, or they tried too hard to give the right answers and tied themselves up in knots. That hadn't been Jack's problem. His problem had been being too honest. There had been some doubts, when his test results had been evaluated. Concerns that he enjoyed being in the field too much (which was true; he loved the rush of it, the hunt and the capture and the sweat and the blood). Suggestions that he walked the line of a sadistic personality. Also true. Truer than they knew. The test had been marked 'borderline'. He'd been eligible to retest, and he'd passed. The next time he'd had to sit through a psych eval, he'd known what answers they wanted. The FBI weren't so goddamn smart.

Neither was Brock. Jack could feel his old compulsions coming back, building up under his skin like heated steam. Every time Brock looked up at him, or leaned back onto his chest, or let Jack roll him over onto his back or pin his wrists, Jack had to consciously tamp down that part of himself that didn't play so well with psychiatrists. The part that could, and would, do anything.

He knew Brock would let him.

* * *

Jack sat up against a tree and Brock, without waiting to be asked, sprawled next to him and rested his head on Jack’s lap. He’d been making less effort with his hair lately and so his bangs, free of their usual product, fell down around his temples and soft and loose. Jack might have been offended that Brock had started to forgo his primping before their dates, but he’d never been the kind of man to umbrage at that sort of thing and besides, it suited Brock. The dark circles under his eyes, not so much.

‘What?’ Brock grinned at him, letting his eyes slide closed. It was dusk, and warm, and the smell of fresh-cut grass was heavy in the air. The park was very quiet, but for a little birdsong and the occasional, far-off yell of an over-excited kid on his way home. Jack couldn’t blame Brock for drifting off.

‘Just looking at you,’ Jack replied, and he rubbed a careless palm over the top of Brock’s skull, ruffling his hair.

‘Don’t stop,’ mumbled Brock, letting it happen. This felt like new territory. Jack was not the kind of man who lounged in parks and indulged in light petting. Under his hand, Brock made a purring, humming sound in his throat and pressed his head against Jack’s rough hand.

Jack suddenly became the kind of man who lounged in parks and indulged in light petting.

‘Wanna get a beer later?’ he asked idly, letting his head fall back against the tree. He moved his hand lazily over Brock’s scalp.

‘Got some in the fridge,’ Brock replied. ‘You staying over?’

‘Yeah. It’s Saturday tomorrow.’ The conversation - such as it was - lapsed for a while. Jack watched the bats come out, flitting and fluttering around above the park. A light dew fell. Brock dozed against his leg, his mouth falling open like the kid he was. Jack couldn’t imagine anyone being indispensable in his life, but Brock was - he _was_ , present in Jack’s mind and a feature of his days now. Warm against him now, and when they shared a bed, and when he jostled Jack with his shoulder as they walked, neither of them being disposed towards hand-holding. He didn’t intrude on Jack’s life in any way that might have required Jack to make significant changes, which was exactly how Jack liked it. And yet, the beer that Brock drank appeared in Jack’s fridge just as surely as Brock had made sure that tonight there would be a six-pack of Kronenbourg in his own kitchen.

The night cooled off, and Jack luxuriated in it. Brock was still wearing his beaten-up grey hoodie, his jacket under him to protect him from the damp grass. He was half-asleep. Jack watched the sky darken and desaturate until the stars were coming out. A satellite arced across the sky, cutting across the wide, round face of the near-full moon. He allowed his thoughts to drift in a quick, uncharacteristic fit of self-indulgence.

The last real relationship that Jack had been in - an exclusive thing, with dates and conversation and giving a shit about the person - had been with Alex. More than five years ago, now, long enough that Jack couldn’t really get up the energy to still be angry about it. Alex Krycek had been handsome, sharp as hell and possessed of a kind of tightly-wound, vicious humour that came out the most when he was under pressure. He’d worked in counter-terrorism, so he’d almost always been under pressure. He was a firebrand, sexy and reckless and keeping Jack on his toes every minute. Jack had nearly throttled him a few times. Might have ended up fighting with him physically, except that Alex had been the kind to enjoy that kind of thing, the mad bastard. God, he’d been fun, though; he’d needed exactly what Jack liked to give and they’d fuck to blow off steam and then watch shitty action flicks together. Alex had even lived with him for a couple of months, when he’d been in between apartments and too busy with work to house hunt.

Then, almost a year after they’d first gone home together, Alex had disappeared. Really disappeared; Jack had trawled through the FBI databases himself and found nothing. It might have been possible for Alex to go off on some deep cover project for a long time, but he’d have found a way to say something and besides, there’d have been records. The FBI always kept records. In his more cynical moments, Jack reckoned that it was probably what they were best at, all that paperwork. So, Jack had pulled strings and called in favours and spent hours in the office after everyone else had gone home, trying to figure out where the hell Alex had gone. Nobody knew. He was marked as a Missing Person; an investigation ensued that turned up no leads, and eventually it was dropped. Cold case number 443-003-B. End of story.

It was unfair to compare the two men directly, so Jack tried hard not to think about how Brock’s animated swearing at the TV in Italian reminded him of the way Alex would lazily curse in Russian, or how Alex and Brock made almost exactly the same breathless, hot sound of excitement when he grabbed them by the throat or the hair in bed.

It was unfair to Brock to compare them. Alex was long gone now, probably never to be heard from again, and it wasn’t like Brock’s computer job was going to get him abducted and killed, which had most likely been Alex’s end. The intel and counter-terrorism guys got in deep with a lot of bad, bad people. They lost a couple every year. Jack knew that Brock made people websites, which didn’t seem like the kind of profession with a body count. Websites, a bit of graphic design stuff. And there was more, that Brock was cagey about. That was a problem for another day, though. What could Brock possibly be up to, a kid like him?

He kept stroking Brock’s hair and listening to the sounds of the night.

* * *

‘Not bad, Rollins,’ said Rogers the next Monday, catching Jack on his way to what was about to be a hurried, cafeteria lunch. Jack had to work to keep his surprise off his face. ‘Not bad at all. This is some attention to detail right here.’ He lifted his tablet and Jack caught a flash of the report he’d sent off the week before, a dry thing full of tables and lists and potential avenues for further investigation. Jack had laboured over it for a fortnight, knowing that any sign of incompetence was no longer acceptable. His apprenticeship had run its course and from now on, it was open season on him if he fucked up. Rogers typically did little to disguise his irritation at being saddled with him; today was remarkable in that Rogers had spoken to him at all.

Behind Rogers he caught a glimpse of tall, sardonic Maria Hill. She widened her eyes at him dramatically and made a heart shape with her hands. Jack was coming to appreciate her presence in the office, if not like her, precisely. She was too intellectual, too aloof and sarcastic to be properly likeable. A bit of a kindred spirit, though, in a vague way. Or perhaps it was just that she didn’t get along with Rogers all that well. Jack smoothed his face and ignored her, but as soon as Rogers stalked off down the hall towards his office, she cornered him.

‘Well, well, well,’ she said, falling into step besides him. ‘Aren’t you the star pupil today?’

‘Got moved out of the remedial class,’ Jack snorted. ‘Not exactly an achievement.’

‘If you keep doing all your homework, perhaps you’ll be allowed to attend the class party,’ said Maria.

‘Class party?’ She wasn’t fooling, not entirely. She meant something. Maria cut her glance across to him and stuck out an arm to keep the elevator door open.

‘Mm,’ she said, once they were alone and the metal doors slid shut; Jack pushed the button for the cafeteria level. ‘Last Friday of every month.’

‘Enlighten me.’

‘Six in the evening, local Irish pub. The in crowd have a few beers and talk shop. Perhaps you’ll get an invitation.’

‘Yeah, not looking likely,’ said Jack. Okay, he’d started matching his belt and shoes, and he wore proper dress shoes every day, and a watch. And he didn’t swear so much in the office. That wasn’t enough, though. He was marked out. Pierce didn’t like him, didn’t approve, and that sort of thing got around without the Assistant Director having to say a direct word to anyone.

‘Stranger things have happened.’ Maria adopted a mystical tone.

‘What, _you_ got invited?’ Jack said, and Maria showed her teeth in a sharp grin, liking the banter. The elevator doors slid open and the smell of institutional food rolled in. Actually the canteen’s offerings weren’t terrible, but somehow the room always smelled like old grease and boiled cabbage. They stepped out. Maria hesitated for a second, one hand on Jack’s arm and eyes flickering across the near-empty seats. Nobody was paying attention.

‘Even if you never get Pierce’s approval,’ she said, low and quick and suddenly very serious. ‘You’re going to have to learn to play the game. You know that, right? You sneak out for lunch, you send little emails on an outside phone, you don’t socialise outside work. Lone wolf isn’t a valid political strategy here. Sooner or later someone’s going to wonder where you spend all that time, figure it out and use that information as leverage.’

‘Why are you giving me advice?’ asked Jack. Maria, Pepper, the red-headed doctor - it seemed like women were lining up to offer him pearls of wisdom. He said that last out loud, under his breath, considering.

‘Maybe it’s your rugged good looks,’ said Maria. ‘Or maybe we’re all suckers for the underdog. Later, Rollins.’ She turned for the ladies room without a glance back, and once again Jack was suffused with the sense of not really knowing where he was with anyone. Wasn’t that a fucking bitch - you couldn’t trust folk even if their advice seemed solid. What was there to measure against, here?

Maria, Pepper and the red-headed doctor.

Jack perused the lunch options and resolved to pull some files. Perhaps he could cash in a favour with Sam down in intel. Maybe a couple of folks from his old department - if he could find any who weren’t still fuming over his sudden promotion. He’d spent long enough these past few weeks running background checks and searching for connections in files. Maybe he could work out if these three had anything in common, aside from their curious habit of offering unsolicited advice. As if confirming the latter, the woman behind the counter smiled at him and gave him an extra serving of soup, filling the bowl all the way up with the curried vegetable stew.

‘You look like you need it,’ she said, and Jack thanked her without paying attention and sat down to eat. It wasn’t bad; not really spicy enough. He shoved work to the back of his mind and concentrated on shovelling his food down. His cellphone shifted against his thigh and he contemplating sneaking off to the toilets afterwards to email Brock. Despite his little complexities and foibles, Brock was turning out to be the simplest part of his life right now.

* * *

 **From:** Crossbones crossbones@hydraconsulting.com  
**To:** Jack Rollins j.j.rollins@mails.com  
**Date:** 17 August 2015 at 18:59  
**Subject:** sorry!!

_Hey hey hey, I know I said I could do 7.30 tonight but I’m still working on a project. Rain check?_

* * *

**From:** Crossbones crossbones@hydraconsulting.com  
**To:** Jack Rollins j.j.rollins@mails.com  
**Date:** 24 August 2015 at 17:22  
**Subject:** Errr

_Did we say tonight or tomorrow? Work just got crazy and I need to be AT MY COMPUTER, shit is literally on fire._

* * *

**From:** Crossbones crossbones@hydraconsulting.com  
**To:** Jack Rollins j.j.rollins@mails.com  
**Date:** 29 August 2015 at 11:34  
**Subject:** Re: Were you going to show up last night?

_Oh, shit, I just got all seven of your emails. I suck. (I will totally suck. I will suck your brains out through your dick next time I see you. To make up for it. Did you wait for ages?)_

* * *

**From:** Crossbones crossbones@hydraconsulting.com  
**To:** Jack Rollins j.j.rollins@mails.com  
**Date:** 5 September 2015 at 14:30  
**Subject:** Starbucks near my work, 6pm

_Uh oh, this sounds ultra serious. I know I’ve been really flaky but I’ll be there._

* * *

‘I gotta ask,’ said Jack as Brock picked up the phone with a cheerful hello, ‘what’s the point of organising shit if you’re too busy to show up?’

‘It’s six o’clock,’ yelped Brock in a fit of panic, and Jack heard the scrabbling of computer keys and then Brock dashing across the floor for his shoes and jacket. ‘Don’t go anywhere! I’m incoming. I’ll get a cab. Seriously.’

‘Stay there,’ said Jack. He tried to restrain his anger, shove it down. Yelling into a phone in a Starbucks lacked dignity. ‘I’ve got my bike with me. Try not to drop off the planet before I get there.’ He hung up, stabbing at the little red icon with his thumb. His jaw hurt before he realised that he was grinding his teeth. Abandoning his mediocre coffee on a nearby table, he stomped outside to where his bike was parked up and swung a leg over it. It took him a couple of minutes of deep breathing before he felt calm enough to start the bike. Jack wasn’t generally aggressive on his bike but tonight he took tight corners, slipped through gaps in traffic with laser focus and arrived outside Brock’s building a good ten minutes earlier than he would. He sat for a moment and let the machine cool under him, ticking and settling; the adrenaline ebbed away and he found he was a little calmer. He might able to have it out with Brock without raised voices. Maybe.

Jack was an asshole. He knew that about himself, just as sure as he knew he had a good memory and a sharp eye with a firearm. But what was the point of a man if he couldn’t control his baser impulses at least some of the time? Besides, Brock got funny around raised voices - something about his stepdad and his childhood. Trauma, bad memories, whatever. Jack wasn’t _that_ much of an asshole. Usually.

Still, there must have been anger showing in his face, because when Brock opened the door, half-hiding behind it, he looked like a trapped thing, an animal waiting to be kicked. Jack punched down his irritation again and pushed through the door.

‘Five times,’ he said without preamble. ‘Four times and today. In the past month. You’re a website designer, Brock, what stops you doing the work some other time?’

‘I- I do a lot of things,’ Brock stammered, and he ran his hand through his hair and made it stick up all unruly. With his computer rig and a sea of empty Dr Pepper bottles behind him, his bed unmade and dirty laundry over his chair, it made him look like a teenager. Jack wasn’t proud of how that made him feel. The little stab of excitement, of power withheld but ready to exert at any time.

‘A lot of things that need you on call 24/7?’

‘Kinda, yeah.’ Brock’s gaze was evasive. Jack stalked across the floor a few paces towards him.

‘What kind of things?’ Jack drew the last word out.

‘I don’t actually have to tell you,’ said Brock, his chin going up in that way he had. A little lift, a little fuck-you. That was one of the things that Jack liked about Brock - he knew his worth and he wasn’t afraid to hold his own in an argument or a fight. He was irritating the piss out of Jack tonight, and Jack was already feeling hostile after the past few weeks of cancellations and evasions. But the little chin lift and the retort; that was what kept Jack coming back. He couldn’t have respected a guy who just rolled over whenever tempers got frayed.

‘All right,’ said Jack. ‘You don’t have to tell me. You don’t have to do anything. You don’t owe me an explanation, or a proper apology. You don’t even have to date me.’ Brock flinched; it was a low blow. Not untrue, but unkind.

‘It’s just work stuff,’ said Brock. It was an obviously false excuse, but Brock delivered it with as much finality as he could muster against Jack, and Jack realised that he wasn’t going to get anything more truthful or more informative out of Brock tonight. He shed his jacket and hung it on the door handle, rolling his shoulders loose. He’d been tense all day, now that he thought of it. Brock watched him and relaxed, too, clearly reassured that Jack was not about to break up with him and ride away into the night.

‘Look at me,’ commanded Jack, and he cupped Brock’s chin in his hand and made him look up. Gently; firmly but not cruelly. Brock didn’t need him to be cruel. The lightest touch on his body and he would always move the way Jack wanted him to. Brock drifted closer, gazing up at Jack with his lips parted and pupils dilated. Gone was his apprehension from the start of their conversation. Now he was all eager anticipation laced with arousal. Jack hesitated, his thumb on Brock’s jaw picking up the kid’s hammering pulse. Once again, Brock had managed to weasel his way out of any real conversation and now Jack was too distracted to pursue it. Brock’s eyes, big and brown and trusting, indicated no deep, dark secrets. He had none of the nervous guilt of someone hiding something they were ashamed of.

‘I’m looking,’ Brock said, prompting Jack out of his thoughts. ‘Now what?’

‘I should put you over my knee,’ said Jack, and let his mouth twitch in a half-smile as Brock’s heartbeat skittered and jumped. ‘Teach you a lesson about punctuality.’

‘You should,’ breathed Brock, eyes huge. His hands were dangling down by his sides. He wasn’t reaching out to touch Jack. He probably wasn’t even thinking about it. All his focus was on Jack’s face in a way that was much too heady for Jack to bear for long. Jack relented. He kissed Brock hard, left hand under his chin still and right hand grabbing a fistful of Brock’s shirt to pull him in closer. Brock’s hands landed on Jack’s biceps, then his shoulders, and then he was looping his arms around Jack’s neck and pressing up against him as if he was trying to climb a tree. Jack disentangled his hands and tried lazily to figure out the logistics of taking the flat of his hand to Brock’s luscious, round little ass.

Impatience won out. He turned Brock and shoved him towards the bed with a palm on his back.

‘Take your pants off,’ he said, and Brock immediately complied, kicking his jeans off under his computer desk. ‘And your boxers.’ They went too, and Brock wriggled out of his shirt and socks for good measure - a small vanity that Jack could well understand. He watched Brock hover, looking back over his shoulder and Jack and unsure of what to do next. Jack stripped off his clothes with a casual air, letting Brock watch, letting him wonder. When Brock’s eyes drifted down to the distinct line of Jack’s cock in his boxers, he wet his lips with his tongue and Jack felt himself stir in response. He took his time, loosely folding his clothes over the back of Brock’s chair.

He’d always been good at the fine art of the power trip.

‘Lie down on the bed,’ said Jack, ‘face down.’ Brock whimpered, hardly audible. The covers were rucked up, the bed unmade, but Brock made no attempt to straighten the layers. He lay with his arms thrown above his head, legs just a little apart. He was already half-hard; it couldn’t have been comfortable. Jack grinned to himself. He straddled Brock’s thighs and ran his hands experimentally over Brock’s ass to watch him twitch. Brock was peeping over his shoulder; Jack pressed his face down into the covers with one hand. ‘Stay,’ he said, like Brock was a dog.

When he brought his left hand down hard on Brock’s ass, Brock _yelped_ like a dog. On the next strike, Brock pressed his face in the bed and muffled the noise, high pitched and excited. Jack grinned to himself and slapped Brock’s ass again. Three strokes, that was all it took before Brock was rubbing himself against the covers, his shoulders and back lifting with every desperate breath he sucked in. A glorious idea occurred to Jack just then, an idea that made his half-hard cock spring to immediate attention. Jack leaned over him to the nightstand, liberated the lube and trickled some over Brock’s ass and thighs. He rubbed it in, taking good advantage of Brock’s round little ass being _right there_ and then smoothing the clear liquid down his thighs.

Jack let his cock slide up between Brock’s cheeks, holding it there with his thumb. Nice. If his phone wasn’t in his jacket pocket, he’d have taken a photo. He thrust a couple of times and Brock arched up to meet him, making his needy little noises. The fingers of his left hand were fisted in the covers and his right hand was hovering, as if he was about to reach down to touch himself. Jack forestalled that by leaning over Brock’s shivering, desperate body and bringing his hand down on top of Brock’s to pin him. On another night, Jack might spend the time easing his fingers into Brock and then fucking him long and slow. Tonight, he didn’t have the patience. He levered himself down over Brock, his own weight pushing Brock down into the mattress, and let his cock slip between Brock’s thighs. A quick nudge of his knee against Brock’s right thigh, and Brock was pressing his legs together just right. Jack fucked into the tight, slick space there while Brock panted and rolled his hips against the bed.

‘Not fair,’ he said breathlessly to Jack, who huffed out a long breath in laughter.

‘Why?’ Jack didn’t stop.

‘I want,’ Brock began, and then abandoned the idea of begging and just squirmed until his left hand was down on his cock. There was little to compare to the feeling of Brock wriggling and making his high, sharp sex noises as Jack rode him. Jack cut loose and fucked between his thighs with brutal thrusts, until his arms were trembling and he was ready to come. Underneath him, Brock was red-faced, red down the back of his neck, too. Jack let himself come, spilling on Brock’s thighs with a long, shuddering groan.

‘Please,’ said Brock, pushing up against Jack. Jack sucked on one thumb and pressed it into Brock’s ass and Brock gasped, clenched down around him and came, grinding and moaning, easy as anything.

* * *

‘I’m not, like, trafficking drugs on the side,’ said Brock into his pillow a little later. He was sleepy and loose-limbed, and he settled into Jack’s side and flung an arm over his chest. ‘It’s just some project and a guy I work with is being weird about it.’

‘Mm,’ replied Jack, already drifting off himself. The rush of post-sex endorphins made him feel remarkably benevolent. Now that he was with Brock, their bodies pressed together, it seemed impossible that Brock could be keeping anything serious a secret from him. Wishful thinking, perhaps. He wasn’t sure he could handle more secrets. Anyway, if he couldn’t trust Brock, who could he trust?


	6. Chapter 6

**From:** Obie Stane o.stane@starkindustries.com  
**To:** Tony Stark ironman@starkindustries.com  
**Date:** 4 June 2015 at 14:43  
**Subject:** Your little sabbatical

_Unfortunately, my dear boy, we don’t always get the chance to behave as we’d like. You’re in a unique position and you have more responsibility than a lot of young men your age. For some, that would be a curse, but I urge you to look upon it as a blessing. Responsibility has a way of shaping a man, of building his character. You come from good stock, and you’ve got the chance to rise above the common man and do something powerful, something vital, with your life._

_No, you’re right, your father hasn’t asked you directly and he hasn’t put any specific restrictions on you this year. I’ve known Howard for a very long time, though, since we were your age, and I think it would be sensible to interpret his gift of a year without study or work in the most grown-up way possible. Sitting around on the internet coming up with schemes with your friends hasn’t been forbidden, but you should ask yourself: what would my father think? What would my father do? I think he’d be considering what he could learn this year, and what information he could pass on to others to build upon._

_You’re standing on the shoulders of giants, Tony. Don’t waste the opportunity to climb higher over some ridiculous sentiment._

* * *

  **From:** Tony Stark ironman@starkindustries.com  
**To:** Obie Stane o.stane@starkindustries.com  
**Date:** 5 June 2015 at 09:35  
**Subject:** Your little sabbatical

_Okay you make good points and you’re right, Dad would probably disapprove of a lot of this stuff. Let me think about it for a while and get back to you though. These are my friends. I have to have friends outside of SI and Dad’s rich buddies or I’d go crazy (and it’s good for my development, right, it’s broadening my horizons, Mom always used to tell me to learn about people who don’t live like we do)._

* * *

 

 **From:** Obie Stane o.stane@starkindustries.com  
**To:** Tony Stark ironman@starkindustries.com  
**Date:** 6 September at 13:23  
**Subject:** Do you have an update for me?

_I have to question your commitment to your father’s work, Tony. You know you could be very valuable to him in his computer science department. From what you’ve told me you’ve been making some wonderful progress, considering your years and your lack of formal training. You remind me so much of your father when we were growing up together. Howard always liked to keep his little projects to himself. He’s learned to share, though - SI wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for people working together towards a common goal._

* * *

 

 **From:** Tony Stark ironman@starkindustries.com  
**To:** Obie Stane o.stane@starkindustries.com  
**Date:** 7 September at 09:59  
**Subject:** Do you have an update for me?

_I guess. Dad never really seemed interested in my compsci work before, though. He still wants me to go to MIT at the end of this year, their engineering program. I told him that I’d do better at the SI techlabs in upstate NY - just throw me in there and let me soak it up, but Stark men go to MIT, blah blah blah. It feels like nothing I’m working on right now would be good enough for him… but you’ve been friends with him forever, so maybe you can convince him._

_Wow, I’m really glad I can talk to you about this stuff._

* * *

 

Brock picked up his phone on the first ring, because it was Natasha and she never called for no reason. He wasn’t even going to pretend he’d been working; his current project was open in front of him but he’d been caught in a Wikipedia spiral for hours, currently reading about rare crustaceans after several dozen jumps from VR technology, via Ukrainian national dress.

‘You’d better get over here,’ she said without greeting or preamble.

’Good morning to you too,’ Brock said, saving his work and pushing his desk chair away from his desk a little. He slid down in it and put his feet up on the big bass speaker. ‘Over to where? What’s happening?’

‘Bucky’s. Shit’s going sideways with him and there’s only so much I can do to calm him down.’

‘When is that not true, though? What’s he on about now?’ Brock expected Natasha to repeat Bucky’s usual concerns - security, sources, government, tin foil hats. All that crap. Bucky was pretty predictable.

‘Your lover-boy.’

Brock sat up straight in his chair. ‘What? He doesn’t even know about Jack.’

‘I didn’t tell him,’ said Natasha. ‘A little bird did. That chat you and I had about Jack the other day? Tony overheard through the window, and of course he ran straight to Bucky with it.’ Brock groaned. ‘All right!’ Natasha called to someone in the background, a sharp edge of tension in her voice. ‘I’m telling him!’

‘Was that—’

‘Yeah, he’s not in a good state. When can you be here?’

‘You’re not doing a very good job of convincing me,’ said Brock. ‘I’m not walking half an hour over there to get my ass handed to me by Bucky’s creepy robot arm.’

‘Don’t be an asshole. Anyway, he’s not going to hurt you,’ said Natasha in exasperation. ‘Just, let’s get it out in the open, okay? No secrets.’

‘Why do I get the feeling you’re lecturing me?’

‘Because I am?’

‘You agreed with me - we don’t tell Bucky.’ As far as Brock was concerned, that was a pretty watertight argument, but Natasha sighed.

‘Fine, yes, I did agree. But that was months ago, before you were a real item. And now he knows, so come over and reassure him that Jack’s not, like, piloting drones into hospitals, and then we can get on with work.’

‘Maybe I’ll come over and fucking beat on Tony instead, ‘cause this really sounds like his fault and not mine.’

‘Tony’s an idiot,’ agreed Natasha, ‘but he’s a kid and he’s ridiculously sheltered.’

‘He’s gonna be ridiculously something,’ threatened Brock half-heartedly, but he stood up and starting looking for his shoes.

* * *

Brock dawdled across the city, dragging his feet, stopping to take photos of the skyline and look in shop windows. Bucky was tiring on a good day; babysitting him through one of his tantrums was way down at the bottom of the list of things Brock wanted to do. If Tony had heard everything - and just the thought of that made him cringe a little, because, wow, he’d told Natasha some stories - then Brock was going to have to do some fast talking to explain why he was fucking a guy in law enforcement, letting the man into his home, leaving him unattended around his cellphone and his computer. Brock kept everything password protected, but Bucky didn’t care about that sort of thing. If Tony had only heard scraps, maybe Brock could keep it vague. And that was if Natasha hadn’t confirmed anything.

His life would be so much easier if Bucky wasn’t around, and even admitting it to himself hurt Brock a little. They went way back. There was a time that they could tell each other anything, and did, but those days were long gone, swept away on the tide of Bucky’s pain and paranoia, and Brock’s inability to help him.

He got to the end of Bucky’s road, pulled out his headphones and steeled himself. Natasha was waiting for him outside, leaning against the building and chewing gum like a sullen teenager. Without a word to him, she punched in the building code and they went upstairs. Brock heard Bucky before he saw him, a low, venomous hum of angry soliloquising through the front door of his apartment. When he walked in, Tony was sitting on the sofa, hugging his knees to his chest. Bucky, as usual, was pacing back and forth. When he saw Brock he stopped and spun on his heel, marching over and shoving Brock back against the door, hands on his chest.

‘What have you told him?’ Bucky said, too loudly to be comfortable. He was flushed with anger, taking up space. His t-shirt showed off his chest and shoulders to almost frightening advantage. On the couch, Tony looked small and pale. His eyes looked a little red; if he hadn’t been crying, he might be about to start. Brock squared off to Bucky with a sign.

‘Fuck all,’ he said, levelly. Couldn’t show fear with Bucky. Couldn’t look intimidated when he was like this. Not this new Bucky. The old Bucky would shrug almost everything off with an easy laugh, but these days he was like a wild animal. It was a bad idea to rile him up, but you couldn’t placate him either. Had to hold your ground, weather his storms, because he was a stubborn son of a bitch who wouldn’t go to therapy like a normal fucking person. So now Bucky advanced on him a step and his voice dropped very low, very threatening.

‘Yeah? Tony says it’s been months. All summer, you been fucking this guy and we didn’t know about it. All the time we’ve been working on sensitive stuff, documents we’re not supposed to have, cultivating people we’re not supposed to be talking to. And you got some government guy hanging out with you, listening to all your conversations, watching what you’re up to.’

‘He has a job, and a life,’ said Brock. ‘He doesn’t sit and stare at my monitors all day. C’mon. And I’m careful. I’m real careful. As far as he knows, I’m a website designer.’ Brock folded his arms across his chest, knowing that it made him look bigger and stronger. ‘That’s true, by the way. He knows about my day job, that’s it.’

‘Why didn’t we know about him?’

 _Uh, because you’re super weird about anyone having a life outside of Insight?_ Brock wanted to say.

‘It was early days,’ he said instead. ‘He doesn’t really know about you guys either.’

‘Doesn’t really? You know that for sure?’

‘Yeah, I know. Or he’s lying to me to, in which case I got a bigger problem than you, if you can believe that.’

Wrong move. Bucky hauled off and punched Brock, square in the nose. Brock staggered back, one hand to his face, and registered Natasha flying past him. She put her little hands on his chest and tried to turn him around, so that he couldn’t see Brock. She calmed him like a wild horse.

‘Enough,’ she said. ‘Bucky, that’s enough. Come on, we can’t end up divided before we launch the site. Think about Insight.’

‘I am,’ spat Bucky, pushing her away. ‘I’m about the only one who is.’ Brock touched his bleeding nose gingerly, but it didn’t seem broken. He pinched it and tipped his head back to stem the flow.

‘You’re not thinking clearly,’ he said to Bucky. ‘How long have we been friends?’ Appeals to friendship worked quite well on Bucky. He was sentimental like that. Loyal.

‘Since high school,’ Bucky said, still breathing heavily but making no further move towards Brock.

‘How many high school friends have stuck around?’

‘Just you,’ said Bucky. He looked down for a minute, his jaw clenching. He was fighting to pull himself together; it had been a mean comment, from Brock. Brock knew that Bucky was too volatile and frightening for most people, these days. Not a single one of their old friends wanted to be around him.

Just Brock, more fool him.

The fight had mostly gone out of Bucky, it seemed, and Brock carefully stepped past him to the kitchen sink to rinse off his face. He pulled some kitchen towels off the roll, cleaned himself up.

‘Are we done?’ he asked Bucky. The atmosphere in the room was uncomfortable. Nobody wanted to be there. Tony was shuffling along the sofa towards the door, Natasha had retreated to a corner, stiff and glaring. How the hell did people finish arguments, anyway?

‘We’re done,’ Bucky said slowly. ‘For now.’ His words hung ominously in the air. Tony was out the door like a shot, and Brock followed him without saying goodbye.

* * *

Outside, Brock caught up with Tony at the end of the block and spun him round with a hand on his shoulder. Tony was only slight, not quite come into his adult growth yet, and it wasn’t hard to shove him up against the wall and make his teeth rattle. He was still pale under his tan and he looked tired. His eyes widened when Brock manhandled him, but he didn’t move to defend himself. _Guilty conscience_ , thought Brock spitefully. For a second Brock thought about punching him, getting into a good fight to blow off steam. It wouldn’t be very satisfying, though. Tony wasn’t much of an opponent. He contented himself with shoving his face up near Tony’s and looming, pretending he was Jack when he was all riled up. Jack was good at intimidation. It’d be scary if it wasn’t so hot.

‘What the fuck were you thinking?’ he said, low and vicious, and Tony flinched.

‘I don’t know,’ protested Tony.

‘How can you not know?’

‘It seemed important, I guess.’

‘It should have seemed like none of your business! That was a private conversation, dude.’

‘Yeah, but it concerned all four of us,’ said Tony with an air of self-righteousness, and Brock was immediately annoyed by that whiny, rich-kid tone he put on, like it was his right to be into everything and know everything because he was clever and his dad was rich. Tony did that sometimes, put on this air as if he was a private, Stark Industries consultant deigning to help with their little technical issues.

‘It concerns me,’ said Brock. ‘Just me. I chose to tell Nat because she keeps her mouth shut, which is exactly why I didn’t tell _you_.’

‘I’m not wrong!’ Tony said, trying to work loose of Brock’s tight grip on his shoulders. ‘This government guy could fuck everything up. He could find out our secrets. The government ruins everything.’ The last was delivered with the air of a fourteen year old debating on the internet, and Brock snorted.

‘Your dad’s company gets billions of dollars for government contracts, so shut the hell up.’

‘That’s different, it’s—’

‘And then why would you tell Bucky?’ Brock said, interrupting him. ‘Like, of all the people. Are you too dumb to understand what he’s like? He thinks the government are spying on him, it’s not a stretch to make him think the worst of— of Jack.’ Tony looked away when Brock said Jack’s name. Maybe he was finally ashamed in some small measure, ashamed that he was on the verge of totally fucking up Brock’s life, which up until now had been going pretty great.

‘He’s kind of,’ Tony began, and trailed off. Brock glared. ‘He’s kind of in charge of things. I felt like he was the person to tell.’

‘You know it was me and Bucky thought up Insight, way back in the day?’ Brock said. ‘Before he was deployed, before he went all screwed up. Me and him, in my old apartment. Then we brought Nat in, and then you. Me and Bucky first. You last.’

‘I didn’t know that.’

‘No, I bet, so you just thought that me, of all people, would leak details about our project - about _my_ project to some random guy just because he knows how to fuck. Great investigating, Sherlock Holmes, you’re like a level twenty-five detective. I mean, fuck, I don’t know, maybe we should start looking into your family, see how wrapped up they are with a bunch of government stuff. You told Bucky I’m fucking a cop - and you’re wrong, by the way, ‘cause he isn’t, he’s much cooler than that - and your dad makes weapons for the US military. You’re lucky we let you in the same room as our stuff.’ By the time he finished his speech, Brock was breathing heavily and Tony was tense and unhappy. Brock didn’t feel a whole lot better for it.

He turned on his heel and stormed away before Tony could reply.

* * *

The door crashed into the wall as Brock stormed into his apartment and then ricocheted shut in a way that would certainly have pissed off his neighbours, had he had any to speak of. He flung himself down on his bed before he even turned his computers on. It was starting to get dark, and with the curtains closed his room was shadowy, but he didn’t move to turn on a light. The adrenaline from his argument with Bucky and then with Tony, was still coursing through his veins and making him antsy. He wanted to fight. He wanted to go and box. And, to his chagrin, kind of wanted to cry - snivel like a kid, or something. He could get drunk later, maybe that would make him feel better. At least it would help him sleep.

Brock picked up his phone and found himself scrolling to Jack’s number. He let it dial. Jack picked up quickly - he’d have been home for a while, now - and in the background Brock could hear the chatter of a radio station. That meant Jack was out in the garage, working on a bike. Brock had been inside that hallowed space only a couple of times. Not that Jack had invited him over all that much - it was more convenient to be in town, so that’s where they met. With a double garage and a workshop to house all his machines, Jack needed more space so he lived ages out. Ages to Brock’s way of thinking, anyway. Not a convenience store for miles and miles and that, Jack had said with satisfaction the first time he’d driven Brock out there, was exactly how he liked it. Nobody to disturb him out in rural Virginia. Unless it was Brock, calling him.

‘What’s up?’ Jack sounded terse. He didn’t like to be interrupted when he was working. He had this whole thing, this whole philosophy. Something about ‘flow’.

‘Can’t I call a hot guy for no reason?’ Brock said, unconvincingly.

‘I’m not driving all the way back there to fuck you tonight,’ Jack said. There was a loud clang, like sheet metal falling, and Jack cursed.

‘Busy?’

‘Obviously. What did you want? Other than to get off.’

‘Actually, I wanted to talk. I had a shitty day.’ Brock frowned at his ceiling, as if Jack were there to see it.

‘Mm,’ said Jack. There was a rustling down the receiver; the phone was rubbing between Jack’s cheek and shoulder. ‘What happened?’

Brock paused. Options were limited. Now that he had Jack on the line, he wasn’t sure he wanted to talk at all. It wasn’t really a problem he could convey without giving away the kinds of details that Tony and Bucky thought he was _already_ spilling. Added to which, the subtleties of interpersonal communication were not Jack’s strong suit. Brock had idly wondered no few times if Jack had ever done the seriously sexy undercover stuff. He reckoned Jack would probably be a good liar, but he couldn’t imagine the man seducing hot women or pretending to be a businessman, like in a movie. Or—’

‘You still there?’ Jack asked, sounding as though he wished Brock wasn’t.

‘I’m here. I had an argument with Bucky and Tony. It got pretty heated.’

‘Isn’t Tony the kid one?’

‘Yeah?’

‘You let a sixteen year old make you feel bad?’

‘He’s seventeen. And you don’t need to be a dick about it.’ Jack laughed, which riled Brock even more. ‘I’m gonna hang up.’

‘Okay,’ said Jack. Brock didn’t hang up. He waited. ‘All right,’ said Jack eventually, by way of an apology. ‘What were you arguing about?’

‘You,’ said Brock. ‘They don’t think you’re good for me.’ That wasn’t all the way a lie.

‘Hah,’ Jack snorted, sounding more interested, more tickled in the conversation than he had yet this evening. Like it pleased him that Brock’s friends didn’t want him around, when they hadn’t even met him, didn’t know him from Adam. ’I bet they don’t. Old guy with a motorbike, teaching you naughty tricks.’

‘And the whole working for the government thing.’

‘You know you’re not supposed to—’

‘Relax,’ interrupted Brock. ‘I was vague. That’s all they know. Anyway, it’s not like I know much. You catch bad guys, that’s literally it, you could be in the police. You could be a bail bondsman.’ That last made Jack laugh. He had a weird sense of humour.

‘I was a cop for a while,’ he said.

‘What _do_ you do now?’

‘Can’t tell you,’ Jack said. ‘Could tell you, once you’d been vetted. Not gonna happen right now. So keep it quiet.’

‘Okay, but have you ever seduced a woman in a bar while pretending to be a—’

‘Kid, you have a pretty face and I like you a whole lot, but you are annoying as hell sometimes. I’m not James Bond, I never seduced a woman in a bar, and I’ve got a bike in thirty pieces over here. Go and play a videogame, or something.’ Brock made a small, sad noise, as pitiful as he could manage. It didn’t work. Jack hung up and Brock sighed dramatically into the room and dropped his phone on the floor.

He rolled over and jabbed at the buttons on his computers in a row, one-two-three, and they whirred and beeped to life, red lights flashing. The kettle went on, he detoured to the bathroom while it boiled, and ten minutes later he was sitting at his desk with instant coffee and a bag of hot popcorn. With his password vault open, he set about changing codes and tightening up his personal security. He didn’t want to get crazy about this stuff like Bucky, but a little extra care couldn’t help. Confiding in Jack was a terrible idea, and Jack didn’t seem like he cared much what Brock got up to when it didn’t personally and directly involve him. Okay, fine: maybe some of Bucky’s paranoia was rubbing off, but Brock didn’t want to be caught unawares if his friends turned on him. There was a tight feeling in his chest, a sense of trouble coming. The only way Brock knew to keep himself secure was like this: passwords and firewalls and encryption. Putting up walls.

He worked long into the night, alone in his room.


	7. Chapter 7

**Memorandum**  
**To:** Alexander Pierce  
**From:** Steven G. Rogers  
**Date:** 10 September 2015  
**Re:** Departmental security issue  
_We are currently investigating and I will have a full report for you by the end of the day. There are three potential avenues through which the information could have been leaked: the minor exploit which was patched last week, the contractor whose clearances were not fully revoked when his project ended, and an uncleared romantic interest of Agent Rollins. I know which I think is mostly likely._

* * *

_'You sneak out for lunch, you send little emails on an outside phone, you don’t socialise outside work. Lone wolf isn’t a valid political strategy here. Sooner or later someone’s going to wonder where you spend all that time, figure it out and use that information as leverage.’_

So this, Jack thought as he sat outside Pierce’s office, was what it was like to be stupid. Real fucking stupid. The doctor had warned him. Pepper had warned him. Maria had come right out and said it, tipped her hand just weeks ago. He’d ignored all their advice like an idiot, and now here he was, waiting for the axe to fall. How had that little weasel Rogers figured it out, Jack wondered. Had he left his desktop unlocked? Nobody downstairs had ever given a crap about that, so he had probably forgotten a few times. Could someone have read over his shoulder? Or something old school: Brock lived downtown, so anyone could have seen them together and followed up. They were FBI agents, after all. Or was it more sinister - did the department have eyes on him that he didn’t know about? Working for the Bureau could give anyone the creeps sometimes, the cases you ended up seeing, but Jack’d always figured that if he’d kept his head down and done his job that people would leave him well alone. Turned out that had been a pipe dream. Naive.

Of course, it could all have been a ruse. Rogers hadn’t come out and said anything that suggested specific knowledge. _You’ve been summoned to see Pierce,_ Rogers had said earlier, all smug and knowing. _The Bureau’s rather interested in your little friend._ He’d implied Brock, but Jack knew a lot of folk who the Bureau might not approve of. He tried not to worry. Couldn’t go in with a strategy, so he’d just have to wing it. It wasn’t his first disciplinary meeting. Pepper’s phone bleeping and she picked it up, listened for a second and said, ‘Yes, sir.’

She turned to Jack. ‘In you go,’ she said, ‘you poor bastard.’

Well, that sounded promising. Or - no, the other thing - bullshit. Yeah, that was it. Complete fucking bullshit. Jack straightened his tie and rapped on Pierce’s door.

* * *

 The next morning, Jack banged on Brock’s door until his knuckles stung. Brock opened it, bleary-eyed.

‘It’s nine in the morning on a Saturday,’ he said, confused and blinking. He was wearing boxers and socks and his hair was sticking up on one side.

‘Good time for a little talk,’ Jack grunted. He pushed past Brock into the tiny apartment. The air was heavy with the smell of sleep and it was dark, the thick curtains shutting out the light as always. Jack headed straight for the fridge and grabbed a beer. He intercepted Brock’s raised eyebrows with his own. ‘What? I’m gonna need this.’

‘I’m worried,’ Brock said. ‘Should I be worried? Is this, like, a break-up talk? Should I be wearing pants?’ Jack took possession of Brock’s computer chair, and Brock sat himself down on the edge of the bed. He curled his arms around his knees and looked up at Jack, all soft and sleepy and dangerously endearing. Jack steeled himself.

‘All right,’ said Jack, hating not knowing how to begin and hating even more that he cared about doing this the right way. ‘Look. There’s a problem at work. This creep I work for figured out I was with someone who hasn’t been formally cleared, and he somehow worked out your name.’ Jack scratched at the back of his head. ‘Probably looked over my shoulder, that’s the most likely.’

‘Gross,’ said Brock. ‘But who cares what your loser boss thinks?’ He shrugged and rolled his spine down onto the bed, arms over his head. Without the impending threat of a break-up, his tension had ebbed away. Jack knew that any minute now, Brock was going to open his pretty, sassy little mouth and tell Jack to come to bed.

‘I do,’ said Jack, grimly, ‘because I work for the FBI.’ Brock sat bolt upright.

‘Shut the fuck up! Seriously?’ His New York twang burst through.

‘Yeah. So now we got two things to talk about. One, my boss ordered a background check on you, because I work with sensitive stuff and that’s how we have to do things.’ Brock started to go pale under his tan. ‘And two, you got anything you want to talk to me about before everybody at work knows? Any of these little secrets you think might be relevant? Now’s the time, kid. Fair’s fair - you know what I do now.’

‘I didn’t ask to know,’ said Brock, a little sulky. He shifted on the bed and stared down at his feet. Overwhelmed, maybe. Like this was a little bit more than he bargained for.

‘You had to have guessed I wasn’t just some civil servant,’ said Jack sternly. ‘And you know I used to be a cop.’ He wouldn’t have Brock pretend he was a victim here. Sometimes he got all dramatic about things, like the world existed to please him and anything displeasing was a personal affront.

‘I suppose,’ said Brock. He chewed on his lip; Jack wanted to eat him alive. But first - well. He leaned in and tipped Brock’s face up with two fingers.

‘Spill it,’ he said.

‘I wasn’t lying to you,’ said Brock. ‘I really am a website designer. That’s what I do, every day. It’s how I pay my rent. I’m pretty good at it.’ He looked worried for a minute, an important thought skittering through his brain. Brock was always so transparent. The merest trace of alarm or excitement or irritation broadcast itself over his face like a movie at the drive-in. ‘I pay taxes and stuff. I’m self-employed, it’s all totally legit.’

‘I buy _that_ ,’ Jack told him, ‘and between you and me, the background check’s nothing. They check your rental record, see if you’ve ever changed your name, call up an employer or a landlord. Less you’ve been arrested for anything, or you’re lying about your identity, they won’t find anything.’

‘Okay, so why the interrogation?’ Brock asked, more confident now. Jack almost regretted reassuring him, but to his surprise he found himself wary of applying too much pressure to Brock. Couldn’t interrogate your— well, your _boyfriend_ , he supposed.

‘Because I don’t like surprises,’ said Jack. ‘And I got a fine one yesterday. So if you got arrested for petty theft or whatever as a kid, tell me now. And while you’re at it, tell me what’s so secret with your friends that I can’t know. The Bureau don’t care if it’s embarrassing or weird - they’ll put it in a file and use it to assess you.’

‘They won’t know,’ Brock said quickly.

‘Possibly even worse,’ Jack said. ‘What have you gotten yourself into, Brock?’

‘It’s hard to explain.’ Brock pulled himself to the head of his bed and tugged the covers up over his legs. ‘It’s, uh, it’s me and three friends. One of them, I’ve known forever, since school. That’s Bucky. He was military for a while and he—’ Brock broke off and scrubbed at his hair anxiously. ‘Well, anyway. Then there’s Tony, who’s a kid - super rich dad, super smart guy. He has to go to MIT next year but he’s taking a year out. And the third is Nat.’

‘Your stripper friend? You told me about her.’

‘She’s not a stripper, she’s a _camgirl_.’ Brock corrected Jack with the air of someone who’d been corrected on the exact same point several times before. ‘She’s Russian. She does this whole thing where she fakes this amazing accent and has this sob story about, like, being poor and sad and wanting to move to the West. It’s brilliant. And then guys buy her stuff and send her money.’ Brock grinned. ‘Dudes are so into her, they do all this crazy shit.’

Jack couldn’t help the way his mouth twitched up at one side. He’d heard Brock’s effusive praise of Natasha before and his enthusiasm was infectious. She sounded like a bright girl.

‘So that’s the four of you,’ prompted Jack, trying to keep Brock on track.

‘Yeah. What we’re doing is - it’s very technical,’ he said, inspired. ‘You might not understand it.’

‘Try me.’

‘It’s, uh, experimental,’ said Brock, voice rising into a question at the end. ‘We’re putting together a website for people who, I guess, have some skills like ours. To - to network. And find out information. And just, you know, learn things.’

‘Skills like yours?’

‘I do a bit of hacking,’ said Brock, in the most innocent voice imaginable. ‘Nothing dangerous.’ First rule of questioning, Jack thought to himself as he sat very calmly and quietly in his chair. Let them come to you. ‘It’s, uh, it’s pretty grey hat stuff, you know, we’re not like, staging a coup or anything.’

‘So why all the secrets?’

‘It’s Bucky,’ said Brock heavily, his shoulders slumping. ‘He went through some shit, and now he’s crazy paranoid about everything. Just the fact that you work for the government makes him lose his shit.’ He circled his finger around his nose, pointing to the trace of bruising on his face. ‘This was right before I called you the other night.’ Brock sighed and rested his head against the wall. He looked up at the ceiling, still and pensive. Jack waited. ‘You don’t care a whole lot about my friends. And Bucky and me, we’ve known each other for fucking ever. Seemed wrong to tell you all his personal stuff, or about things that he wants to keep private. Not fair. Winds him up real bad, knowing that we’re talking about our project to anyone outside the four of us.’

With that, Brock, shuffled forward and rested his chin on Jack's knee, all limp and small and wrung out. Jack patted his shoulder, awkwardly consoling. Carrot and stick, or something.

* * *

 They stayed in bed together almost the whole weekend. It didn’t sit too well with Jack, who couldn’t stop thinking about the almighty fuck-up that was awaiting him at work on Monday. It made him snappish and cruel with his hands, disinclined to listen to Brock’s fretful conversation and quick to shut him up in the easiest ways possible. Jack left the house briefly on Sunday morning to take his suit and shirt through the cleaners, dressed in some scruffy workout gear that he’d left in Brock’s drawer for just such an occasion. When he got back, returning to Brock’s bed with a dog-eared Tom Clancy novel and a beer, Brock crawled on top of him as if trying to stop him from moving again. It wasn’t until Jack relented and rested his free hand intermittently on Brock’s head that the kid relaxed enough to grab his phone and start playing some alien fighting game. Not for the first time, Jack wondered who’d walked out on him before.

Come Monday morning there was no food in the house, the bedclothes decidedly needing changing and Brock was more irritable than clingy, Jack’s constant presence visibly beginning to chafe. Jack fetched his suit and a couple of bagels, scrubbed clean in Brock’s tiny shower and headed off to work early, leaving Brock happily installed cross-legged in his computer chair, staring at the screen and dropping crumbs in his keyboard.

Half an hour later, Jack was ducking into the office through the service entrance, sneaking up the back stairs and rapping on the door of Sam Wilson’s office with a furtive glance down the empty hallways. Sam opened the door himself, still in his light autumn coat. He always had arrived to work early; said it was useful to get the jump on people. As usual, he looked like he’d stepped out of a men’s magazine, tan brogues matching his trench coat and a crisp white shirt.

‘Jack, my man,’ he said with a bright smile, and pumped Jack’s hand with enthusiasm. ‘I don’t need to ask why you’re lurking on my doorstep before anyone else is in. Who’d you piss off?’

‘Specials, deputy directors, same as usual.’ Jack shrugged. ‘I’m looking for intel.’

‘Yeah, you are,’ Sam said, ‘and you’re keeping it quiet.’

‘Quiet as a mouse.’ Jack jammed his hands into his pockets and stared at the floor for a moment. ‘Don’t know if I’ve got any favours left with you,’ he said. ‘But if I have…’

‘See, Jack,’ said Sam, settling in behind his desk, gesturing for Jack to take a seat and flipping his coffeemaker on, ‘we’re friends, so we don’t have to live our lives governed by quid pro quo.’

‘All right,’ Jack said. He sat down and made an uncomfortable exhalation; Brock’s piece of shit bed was bad for his back.

‘So what’s the problem? What do you need?’

Jack furrowed his brow, trying to work out where to start. How to make the tangled mess of his life simple enough to explain, without stripping away all the strange complexities that were giving him hell. And without dumping all the details of his personal life on Sam.

‘People keep… offering me advice,’ he said, finally. ‘That I didn’t take. And now I got this nagging feeling like I’m getting fucked over. Someone I’m dating is the pressure point - he’s uncleared - and they’re making it look like I’m leaking intel from CD.’

‘You’re not,’ Sam said, conclusively. Jack nodded once. Sam smiled, suddenly. ‘You’re a suspicious bastard. Who’s giving you advice, and why don’t you trust them?’

‘I don’t trust a whole lot of people right now.’

‘Or anyone.’

‘Some people. You.’

‘Okay. So who do you need me to look up?’

‘Pepper. Maria Hill. And some doctor in medical.’ Jack counted them off on his fingers. Sam frowned.

‘Pepper’s doing some work for me right now. Don’t drag her into this.’

‘Work, as in…?’

‘It’s, let’s say, a little internal investigation of my own.’

So CD did have a leak. There was someone handing off secrets. Jack filed the knowledge away. ‘And the other two?’

‘Maria Hill’s got a reputation, I can tell you that much. A good one, for the likes of you and me. No bullshit, no politics. If she’s giving you free advice, I’d take it. Rogers is supervising you now, right?’ Of course that was the kind of thing that Sam liked to know, just to have in the back of his mind.

‘Yeah.’

‘Hill and Rogers don’t get along so well. She’s got a good handle on the grey areas of life; Rogers sees the world as a series of moral imperatives.’

 _One mystery solved_ , thought Jack. Jack pissed off Rogers just by breathing, so Maria’d make time for Jack. The enemy of my enemy.

‘Who's the last?’ Sam asked over the coffeemaker’s high-pitched shriek. He leaned over and slid two cups under the spout. ‘You're having coffee, right?’

‘Never said no to coffee yet,’ Jack replied. ‘This is why you're the best analyst in the building.’

‘You're just saying that ‘cause there's a fine Colombian blend in play.’

‘Ten percent. It's ten percent the coffee.’ Jack paused, rubbing his thumb along the point of his jaw. He'd missed a spot shaving today. Brock's bathroom was a tight fit. ‘The third’s a doctor. An odd one. Mid-forties, red hair, good looking. Short. Knows who's who, knows about the big busts. Used to be an agent, I'll bet, and either she switched to medical recently, or she's keeping up her skills at the range.’ Jack traced a finger over the rough spots on his own hands from shooting. Sam nodded and his eyes went distant and unfocused as he scrolled through his memory. He had a memory for details like nobody Jack had ever met. ‘Doesn’t think much of Pierce,’ Jack added, and Sam halted him, holding his hand up.

‘Dana Scully,’ he said, eventually. ‘Former agent. I want to say she’s legendary around these parts, but I figure if you haven’t heard of her it’s all been pretty well covered up.’

‘All of what?’

‘The Bureau-wide version of what’s happening to you. She took the fall for some really weird shit.’ Sam frowned, and he tapped at his keyboard until the monitor came to life. Jack blew on his little cup of coffee to cool it and started slurping it down, burning his mouth but not caring. A minute or so of typing and clicking and he made a satisfied noise and motioned to Jack to come and take a look. ‘Here it is - it’s all coming back to me now. It was a bit before our time. She had some crackpot partner, dragged her into a bunch of conspiracy stuff. He disappeared, she got told to pick between a reassignment to medical services and pink slip. She picked medical.’

‘Explains the bitterness,’ Jack commented.

‘Explains why she took an interest in you, too.’

‘That was early days,’ Jack mused. ‘Day before I joined CD officially. I wonder how she knew.’ Sam barked a laugh.

‘Jack, you’re a good guy to have in a tight spot but you’re not much of a politician. Everybody saw Coulson’s play before he made it. You’re just figuring it out now.’

‘Why didn’t—’ Jack began, and then stopped abruptly, because Sam’s shit-eating grin was so wide it looked painful. ‘Right. They did tell me.’

‘And you didn’t listen.’

‘Better late than never,’ Jack shrugged. He drained his coffee, and Sam shook his head in disapproval.

‘Always rushing into things, guns blazing,’ he said. ‘This is your trouble, man. It always was.’

Sam wasn’t wrong, and Jack had to resist the temptation to beat himself up on the way upstairs. Now was the time for strategising, not acting like Brock and losing his shit over the smallest thing. He plastered a neutral expression on his face as he hit the CD floor and slipped down the corridor to his desk as quickly as he could without looking like he was rushing. Within a few minutes of arriving, booting up his computer and opening his email, he had company.

‘Right,’ said one of the endless parade of rookie agents who were all, it seemed, effortlessly more competent in this department than Jack. She set down a stack of papers on his desk and threw a thumb drive on top of it. ‘I think that’s everything. The rest of it’s all on the system - you know how we do phone records and bank stuff, yeah?’ Jack fixed her with an icy glare.

‘Yeah, people outside of this office have heard of internet banking,’ he said, ‘I reckon I can smash the keyboard until something works.’ She coloured and left without a word, and Jack slid the pile of files over and started looking through him. This, it turned out, was punishment; to do tedious paperwork and background checks like a rookie, not allowed to touch anything interesting. Not allowed to handle any material that Brock could find out about. That was what it really meant. Jack’d bet that he’d been flagged for inquiry, too, and that if he tried to access some of the deeper levels of the Bureau’s labyrinthine databases, he’d find himself locked out. And, of course, somebody would pay very close attention to whatever it was that he’d tried to read.

He steadfastly avoided anything contentious. It galled him; there was so much to do. So much he needed to know. Jack would have liked nothing more right now than to fire off an email to Sam down in intel and start figuring out why one of his finest analysts was currently looking pretty and sending memos for Pierce. And why aging doctors with gun callouses were giving him obscure warnings. Instead, he was stuck here processing paperwork.

Fortunately, he was well-practiced enough that he could probably do this with his eyes closed, by now. He’d done it hungover a few times. He flipped the folders into piles and let his mind work. Jack had never let himself get too hung up on the what ifs. What happened, happened. He did like to have a few options in hand, though, and now seemed like a great time to consider what could fuck him over. Rogers, obviously, who had the ear of Pierce and could do whatever he damn well pleased, brown-nose that he was. Pierce, who disliked him and wouldn’t miss him for a minute when he was gone. Worst case scenario: someone out there wanted him gone badly enough to get him framed for an intel leak, which meant internal reviews and even court cases. Or they wanted him fired, in which case, fuck it, Jack was gonna open a fucking bar. Take a happy little drink every day and thank his lucky stars that he’d got out of law enforcement alive. He could quit; there was a sweet option, although it made him look guilty or incompetent.

Or he could attack the problem from the other side and deal with his real weakness: Brock. All he to do was flash a smile and Jack would find reasons to do what he wanted. Like suffer through the humiliation of an internal review about dating a kid. And the fallout if Brock’s ‘experimental computer stuff’ turned out to be a little bit more than a science fair project. And the scandal if Brock had used all that technical knowhow to crack Jack’s phone.

Jack had stopped sorting files. He found himself gripping a sheet of paper until it crumpled, staring off into middle distance, and he snapped back to himself. When he ran his pile of problems through the brain that’d served him mostly pretty well, it returned one thought: solving the problem of Brock would be far easier than solving his problems with the Bureau. Hell, if he broke up with Brock tomorrow and deleted his number, never saw him again, then the Bureau’d have pretty good evidence of his loyalty.

‘What a fucking bitch of a life you have, Jack,’ he muttered to himself. ‘What great fucking decisions you make.’


	8. Chapter 8

**Memorandum**  
**To:** J J Rollins  
**From:** Steven G. Rogers  
**Date:** 13 September 2015  
**Re:** The Coates-Wells case  
_Attached is the extra materiel for this case. Process and pass on to the analysis team ASAP._

* * *

**Memorandum**  
**To:** J J Rollins  
**From:** Steven G. Rogers  
**Date:** 14 September 2015  
**Re:** Data entry  
_While you’re working on the C-W case, you might as well input the logs into the system as well. Ask an intern if you don’t know how we do that in CD._

* * *

Forms and folders and files, lists and notes and records and names and numbers. Jack spent a solid week doing work that was so menial it barely deserved the name. A month ago, Rogers had told him he’d done a good job; now Jack would rather go back to the time when Rogers didn’t contact him at all. Every day, the memos with curt, insulting requests came in. It’d be quicker and easier for Rogers to open the door of his office and call over. He wouldn’t do that, though, because as far as Jack could tell this was supposed to be humiliating. To teach him some kind of lesson about falling in line and being a good soldier. Rogers was an imperious little shit, self-righteous and obsessed with his moral code. Sam hadn’t been wrong. What Jack was only now realising was that Rogers was also vindictive as hell, critical to a fault and wholly obsessed with his job. Jack would bet a sizeable sum of money that Rogers had practically nothing in the way of a home life. The guy probably sat around after work reading books about bank heists and art thefts. Geeky stuff; stuff where the good guys always won.

Well, Jack was technically a good guy, too, but he sure as hell didn’t feel like one at the moment.

_I’m in the wrong job_ , Jack thought to himself for approximately the twenty-eighth time in the past day. Right now, he’d crawl on his belly to the elevator, slither downstairs and beg Coulson to forgive him for the Gregory case on bended knee if he thought it would do anything but ruin his freshly dry-cleaned pants. Begging for a transfer back would look like failure, and it would do nothing to clear his name. He slid another half-dozen files into the tray on his desk with venom, and the tray skidded with a loud squeak that made a couple of people turn around to glare at him. Why CD were still using paper files, he had no idea. Maybe Rogers had had some pulled from another department, just to give Jack something torturous to do. Jack opened the next file, found the top of the list and began to enter the data.

By lunchtime he was ready to scream and overturn his desk, although maybe that was the low blood sugar talking. Once again, he ran into Maria in the elevator and she glared at him with her gimlet eyes.

‘Don’t say it,’ Jack sighed.

‘I wouldn’t dream of telling you that I told you this would happen. Or that you’re an idiot.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Any time, free of charge, Rollins.’ The elevator pinged its way down four floors uninterrupted.

‘I guess this is a bad time to ask you to look something up for me,’ said Jack, as if to himself. Maria glanced at him, eyebrow arched.

‘Horrible, but I’m a sucker for a sob story. Let me hear it.’

‘See how that background check’s coming along.’

‘Why?’

‘Curiosity.’

‘Ah,’ said Maria, clicking her tongue knowingly. ‘They’re letting you stew for a while.’

‘Sure are.’

‘I’ll take a look,’ Maria said. ‘Probably got some rookie on the case. Probably told him it was low-priority.’

‘Dunno what pisses me off more,’ said Jack as they queued up with their trays. ‘That I didn’t see this coming, or that they think I’m so stupid that they’re not even hurrying through an internal review.’

‘Nothing says ‘super dangerous leak’ like letting you push paper for a week,’ said Maria.

‘Yeah,’ Jack replied, examining the sandwich selection with distaste, ‘important background checks always take months. I’m convinced. It was me all along. I’m selling secrets to the Soviets.’

‘You and your inappropriately young boyfriend.’

‘Go fuck yourself, Hill.’

* * *

The idea hit Jack suddenly on the way home, as he sat in the traffic out of DC rapping his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel. It dogged him as the roads cleared, as he mechanically followed the long, poorly-repaired road down to his house in the middle of nowhere. It hung around him like a bad smell or an unpleasant dream as he got out of the car, unlocked his house and poked around in his kitchen for leftovers. Over dinner - a reheated curry from a few days ago - it coalesced, solidified and lurked in the back of his mind, ugly and untrustworthy. _You’re always rushing into things, guns blazing_ , Sam had said.

Okay, Jack didn’t do well with advice. That had been amply proven over the past few months. Hell, his whole life was a testament to his inability to make the smart decisions, to play the game even a little bit. The smart decision right now would be to listen to Sam and let this little idea fade away. Go back to work tomorrow and every day thereafter, wait patiently for Maria to get back to him, wait for the background check on Brock to come back clear, wait for Rogers and Pierce to decide whether or not to investigate him. Wait for the internal review to run its long and tedious course, wait for the verdict, wait—

Wait, and wait, and fucking wait, until he was old and grey and scarred and still stupid, still slow, still incapable of making his life easier in the smallest of ways.  
He threw his plate into the sink with a clatter and paced along the hall to the lounge. He sprawled on the sofa. The sofa that Brock had seen only twice and could, in a matter of a phone call, never see again. Jack slid his phone out of his pocket and flicked at the screen until the address book appeared, loading in fits and starts.

_What are you doing lunchtimes this week?_

A few minutes dragged by. Jack turned on the TV and idly surfed the sports channels until he found something with bikes - some European motocross show. His phone chimed.

_busy tuesday wednesday thursday, nothing friday_

_Lunch Friday?_ Jack typed. _Reckon I can sneak out early. We can try that Thai place, 2pm?_

___back to mine after?__ _

Jack’s fingers hovered for a moment, figuring out what particular brand of lie he could live with.

___Anything you want,_ __ he typed eventually and hit the little arrow to send.

* * *

On Tuesday, Jack sat resolutely at his desk until his lunch break was almost over, at which point he trotted downstairs to avail himself of a rather dry hamburger. His afternoon revolved around data entry, memos, and silently praying for deliverance. On Wednesday, he trailed Maria down to the cafeteria and they sat in silence, picking at what claimed to be spaghetti but could have been cardboard or worms for all that it resembled pasta. He told himself sternly that this was some kind of karmic punishment, and ate his way through the plateful. It beat being hungry and bored, at least.

Thursday was his last shot. He waited all morning for Maria to approach his desk, but she never showed. She didn’t seem to be in the office at all. At midday on the dot he stood, locked his computer screen, slipped his phone into his pocket and left the building, cutting through the side alley and through the streets until he found himself outside Brock’s building. With the curtain drawn, it was impossible to tell whether or not Brock was home, but that didn’t matter for now. He walked up to the street-level door as if he belonged there and easily popped the lock up with his FBI security card, which later he would probably be amused by. Jack crept up the stairs and listened at the door for a moment. No sound. He tapped; no reply. With a wholly unnecessary glance up and down the cramped hallway, he pulled a brown leather case from his pocket, selected two thin lock picks, and went to work.

Not really that much work. Brock’s apartment was an old conversion, and Jack had seen the way he leaned his shoulder just so to get his key to work. Jack just had to lift the tumbler, press and lean on the door handle with his hip. Click, clunk, open. They didn’t teach that at Quantico, but then, all the really useful skills weren’t exactly regulation.

The apartment was empty. Jack hadn’t been there in over a week, and it didn’t surprise him to see that the place looked a little ruinous in his absence. Brock’s housekeeping skills were shoddy at the best of times, but he usually made some kind of an effort when Jack was coming over. At the very least, he would put clean sheets on the bed, stuff his dirty t-shirts in the laundry basket and drop empty bottles and wrappers in the trash. Jack never said anything about it - he’d been about as bad when he was a teenager and not much better after that. Right now it was an explosion. That could be a blessing or a curse in this line of work. In Jack’s case, here and now, it was useful. He could paw through whatever he wanted and be fairly sure that Brock wouldn’t be any the wiser.

Jack’s conscience twinged at him for the briefest moment, and then he remembered the way that Brock had avoided his eyes, and the way he played with his hands when he was evading a question and he shrugged to himself.

He started with the desk. He’d balled a pair of gloves into his pocket in the office and he pulled them out now, jammed his hands into them. They were just liners for his bike gloves, nothing special, but they’d keep him from leaving any telltale prints. His hands were so much bigger than Brock’s that even Brock might suspect something. The top of the desk was a wreckage of snack wrappers, weird little plastic toys, dust, suspiciously-wadded up tissues and unopened mail. Jack sifted gingerly through the layers, avoiding all the figurines. Moving one of those would be screamingly obvious. Gloves, it seemed, had been a good idea for more reasons than leaving prints. He worked quickly, methodically, not sure exactly what he was looking for, but knowing the ballpark. Phone numbers, names, discrepancies in Brock’s personal information, evidence of money changing hands. Notes to self, to do lists. Jack knew better than to expect a password for anything; Brock was rigorous about his computer security. Jack didn’t even plan on switching on Brock’s complicated set-up. Even if he could find out a password, Brock had three computers, a server, a bunch of remote drives and a password vault for his browser. CD could probably gain access if they threw some of their genius child-hackers at it, but it would take them a while. It was beyond Jack’s capabilities, anyway. He reached the far end of the desk. Nothing.

Three drawers were stacked on the right side of the desk, none of them with locks. The top one was a sea of old mail; bank statements, junk mail, nothing important. Nothing that the background check wouldn’t pull anyway. In the second drawer there was a nest of cables, knotted and dusty and stiff with lack of use. No point pulling all that crap apart. The final drawer held an old yearbook, a couple of spiral bound notebooks, a thick, well-thumbed volume on C++ and a dead, desiccated cockroach in the back left corner.

‘Jesus Christ, Brock,’ Jack said under his breath. The notebooks were lying on the top of the stack, conspicuously not dusty. Jack scooped them out and hunkered down on the floor to peruse them. The pages were filled with Brock’s crabbed handwriting, the words dancing up and down off the lines as the mood took them. One was old - the ink a little faded. Lots of number puzzles, fake passwords and scribbled, disjointed lines about clues and locations and weapons caches which were clearly notes on video games. The other was newer and some of the pages were even dated at the start of the book - back when Brock might have tried to make a good habit stick, to keep records. January of the previous year, that was when it began. There were diagrams that Jack could identify as representation of computer systems. Notes on encryption and security. Scribbled lists of government projects and departments, some of them crossed off and some of them annotated. ‘Firewalled.’ ‘Weak.’ ‘Get Tony on this.’

‘Just a little grey hat hacking, huh?’ Jack asked the room quietly. Suggestions of sources. A jumble of half a name and some numbers that was probably an email address. What it added up to, Jack was immediately aware, was an attempt to inveigle a way into government, get hold of classified sources. It was a trawl for potential whistleblowers and malcontents, for reports, files, evidence. The kind of thing that anti-government types lived for, but could rarely gather up the gumption or credibility to acquire.

Brock was smart, though. Smart and canny - Jack had known that since he first set eyes on the kid. Fuck.

A sudden rattle from the door startled Jack’s heart into his throat. He’d been way too absorbed in the notebook. There was a scuffling noise as the picked lock complained, and then the door was opening and Brock’s shadowy shape resolved itself in the half-light.

‘What the hell?’ Brock breathed, taking in Jack’s presence in his darkened flat with his pretty mouth hanging open. He fumbled for the light switch and flipped it on, making Jack’s eyes twinge. There was really no way that Jack could cover this up; crouching by Brock’s desk and rooting through his stuff. Still wearing his shoes and jacket, and gloves into the bargain. No _hi honey I was going to surprise you_. Jack didn’t even have a key to the place. He stood, his knees cracking like gunfire. The notebook stayed on the floor by his feet. Over a minute had passed and Brock was still frozen in the doorway, not closing the door or coming any closer.

Jack stuffed his gloved hands into his pockets and waited. Eventually, Brock let his rucksack slide off his shoulder and dropped it on the floor. He came inside and shut the door behind him. His mouth was tight with anger.

‘It’s, uh, exactly what it looks like,’ Jack supplied.

‘Yeah,’ said Brock, drawing the word out. He drew himself up to his full height and set his jaw. ‘I think you should fucking explain this to me.’ Jack smothered the little stab of pride at the way Brock stood up to him and sat down slowly in Brock’s computer chair. Brock leaned against the wall near the bathroom door, as far away as he could get in the tiny apartment without sitting on the kitchen counter.

‘Well,’ said Jack, ‘for a start this isn’t FBI protocol. This is all me.’ He pulled his gloves off and stuck them back in his pocket. ‘They’re doing a background check on you but it’s being deliberately held up. The reasons are - complicated.’

‘Don’t patronise me,’ said Brock, sounding regrettably petulant.

‘Nah, it’s not that you wouldn’t understand, it’s just boring as hell to explain,’ Jack said. ‘Anyway, kid, I know you’re hiding shit from me. I’m a good hand with a lockpick. I snooped.’ He shrugged. In for a penny, in for a pound. Brock looked deflated, like he was expecting a fight.

‘Just like that?’

‘Just like that,’ confirmed Jack. He stretched his legs out and rubbed at the back of his neck. Brock was hugging himself again. ‘We can’t go on like this,’ said Jack, wanting it to be over. Some kind of certainty in his life at present that he could hang a decision on, that was the thing. That was what was needed. Brock flinched and looked over at him through his bangs.

‘Are you…?’ started Brock, clearly not wanting to be the one to say it. Jack reached down and picked up the notebook off the floor.

‘I got a pretty good idea of what this means.’ He opened it. ‘Sources. Reports - government stuff, I recognise some of these. Stuff about encryption, IP blocking.’

‘It’s none of your business,’ Brock began.

‘It’s exactly my business,’ Jack snapped back, ‘exactly my god damn business. And if my work gets wind of this, it’ll be the end of my business, if you get me.’

‘You don’t like your job much,’ Brock said, apropos of nothing, but the accuracy stung. Jack was pretty sure he’d managed to keep his feelings about CD under tight wraps.

He stood up, hard enough that the chair rocked into the desk and rattled it. A couple of the plastic toys fell over. Did Brock flinch? It was hard to tell. He certainly flinched away when Jack came across the floor towards him. Pressed himself back against the wall and stared up at Jack with an expression that was half resolve and half trepidation. He was easy to intimidate, to a point where Jack thought he practically invited it. Christ, Jack, he thought to himself. This is out of line, even for you. Intimidating a kid when Jack was in the wrong: fine, that was low. Real fucking low. But that was the real world. That was the way things worked. You didn’t have to deserve life throwing shit at you. Sometimes it just happened. Perhaps it was better for Brock to learn that now. He came up close to Brock and rested his hand on the wall, leaning in.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘whether or not I like my job is irrelevant. I have to do my job. How do you think I can do that when you hide stuff like this from me? Huh? This is exactly the kind of thing I’m supposed to be preventing.’

‘I can’t believe,’ began Brock, stopping to swallow hard, ‘that you’re trying to make this my fault.’ He was shaking a little, maybe from righteous indignation, maybe because Jack was looming over him, boxing him in so that even if Brock had wanted to throw a punch, he wouldn’t be able to get a swing.

‘I didn’t make you do anything illegal, kid.’ Jack smiled. ‘Maybe immoral. But not illegal.’

‘Get out,’ Brock spat, shoving at Jack’s chest with his fists. ‘Get the fuck out.’ He was colouring up, angry.

It hurt; Brock was kicking him out and he had no doubt that he wouldn’t be coming back. Brock could be clingy, and he loved a bad boy so obviously that it was almost funny, but he wasn’t a doormat. Hell, Jack liked that about him. Or had liked that about him. Probably should get used to thinking about this whole affair in the past tense. Jack found his smile widening into a grin. Gallows humour. Jack Rollins, fucking his own life up once again. He couldn’t say why it felt so good Intense, to make someone suffer with him; heady, the power he had over Brock in this moment. Jack had always found a sick joy in sabotaging his own life.

‘Yeah,’ drawled Jack, as if Brock wasn’t throwing him out the apartment. ‘I should probably get back. My lunch break’s almost over.’

‘Get out!’ Brock yelled, and the way his voice hitched when he shouted told Jack that he was close to tears. It took an effort of will to turn away from Brock and walk to the door; to open it, close it behind him and not turn back to take Brock’s face between his hands and kiss him senseless. The lock clicked behind the door, and Jack gritted his teeth together. He stood outside the door for a long time, with Brock’s rumpled notebook in his hand. If he waited, perhaps Brock would realise he’d taken it with him and would open the door, see him there.

He didn’t. Eventually, Jack stuffed the notebook in his pocket and made his way downstairs, across the street and back to work. He sat at his desk and pushed paper all afternoon and valiantly pretended that he didn’t want to go home and drink himself unconscious.The notebook stayed in his jacket pocket, where it brushed against his elbow every time he leaned back in his chair. His cell phone was in his desk drawer, and he refused to look at that, too.

At exactly 5pm he stood, put on his coat and reluctantly liberated his phone from the drawer. He had a single email from Brock, and before he opened it he knew exactly what it said.

**From:** Crossbones crossbones@hydraconsulting.com  
**To:** Jack Rollins j.j.rollins@mails.com  
**Date:** 17 September 2015 at 14:22  
**Subject:** fuck you

_i never want to speak to you again. don’t call me. don’t email. you’ve got some shit here and if you want it, it’ll be outside the building in a garbage bag later. I don’t trust you in my home. would like to think that we had a real relationship, like you cared about me, but looking back I figure that was probably never going to happen. you had me over to your house, what, twice? how much were you hiding?_

_yeah, actually, don’t answer those questions, i don’t want to know._


	9. Chapter 9

**From:** JBB yasha@wntr.com  
**To:** Tony Stark ironman@starkindustries.com  
**Date:** 17 September 2015 at 10:43  
**Subject:** question about rsa crypto stuff

_… but anyway, you can look most of that up on the internet. Couple of other bits are my own devising and I don’t care to share. I appreciate the enthusiasm for all this, kiddo. Almost a shame to lose you at the end of the year for college - trustworthy people are rare. See you Friday and I’ll give you a peek at some of my private stuff, but no taking notes and no talking about this. JBB. P.S. Consider getting off your dad’s corporate email, you don’t need that kind of potential security issue in your life. You’re a smart guy, get your own thing up and running._

* * *

‘Fuck,’ said Brock to himself weakly, crumpling down onto his bed. He dropped his head onto his knees, hugging his legs to his chest. Curling up around himself as he’d done since he was a kid. Jack had remarked on it once, with his usual faintly-mocking affection. Had said it make him look younger, and leered in that way he had; Jack would do that, call him ‘kid,’ point out his mannerisms. Was it an asshole move? Brock wasn’t sure any more. Jack called himself an asshole all the time, but mostly he was good to Brock.

He’d left, though. Like everyone else. In the cruellest possible way. Brock chewed on his lip for a minute.

Natasha had this talk she had liked to give him, back when he was sleeping around a lot, about boundaries. Boundaries, that was her thing; she had to be so careful with the guys on the internet and she wanted Brock to be the same way. Like it was the same, and he was dating a bunch of anonymous internet creeps. So she lectured him, talking about establishing preferences, setting limits, not letting people treat Brock like he was expendable. She’d stare meaningfully at the bites and bruises on him, layered over days or weeks. She’d tell him that letting someone do something to you wasn’t the same as participating, or wanting it. Brock hated that. It felt like judgement.

Now, sitting here all curled up and with his throat burning with unshed tears, Brock wondered if perhaps Natasha had had a point. He felt like he’d said no to Jack a few times. Had he meant it? Had Jack listened? Oddly enough, Brock couldn’t seem to remember. They’d fought a couple of times over work. Brock had been defensive over it all. He’d successfully lied, that he knew. Was that the same as saying no? As setting a boundary and holding the line? Jack hadn’t listened anyway. Did it count if the other person didn’t listen? Brock was struck by a sense of naivety, of having none of the answers.

They’d both lied. Maybe that was the problem. Perhaps you couldn’t really ever have a relationship with someone you didn’t fully know. And he’d stopped Jack from knowing him, too. He’d hidden whole chunks of his life and tried to lie them away. So maybe it was his fault too.

A police siren wailed in the distance. Brock kicked his shoes off and lay down on the bed, pulling the covers all the way over him until his head was covered and it was dark and warm and close. The covers smelled like his own deodorant and body and nothing else, thank God; Brock didn’t think he could have survived the smell of Jack in his bed. He would have to tell Natasha and Bucky and Tony that Jack had been through his things. He would have to admit that Bucky had been right, that everything between Brock and Jack had been ruined, and that he had fucked up.

He folded his body in on itself, buried his face in the mattress and let the tears come, snuffling and choking and ugly.

His hunger dragged him out of self-indulgent misery first. In all the books and movies, you were supposed to lose your appetite when you were sad, but Brock had had nothing since breakfast and his tired, wrung-out snivelling was interrupted by his stomach growling. He unfolded himself, peeling his face off the wet, tacky sheet, and scrubbed his face dry on his t-shirt. In the kitchen, he rehydrated with neon orange Gatorade and toasted himself a pile of PopTarts. The sugar revived him a little. He dragged his feet to the shower, very carefully not looking in the mirror, and stood under the spray with his chin on his chest for a while. With the hot water hammering away at his back and neck he came back to himself, the sudden, intense shock of the afternoon ebbing from him.

If asked yesterday what the worst things that could happen to him would be, Brock would probably have said that Jack breaking up with him and Project Insight being put in danger topped the list. Sure, random shark attack or ass cancer would suck, but as far as his quotidian life went, it was Jack and Insight that meant the most to him. Soaking under the shower, with some food in his belly, Brock could see that the worst had happened. He was still standing. He still wanted to cry. He’d get over that, though. Right now, he wanted to act. He turned off the water and hunted for his phone while he towelled off. Jack first. He wrote a spiteful email and hammered the ‘send’ arrow with vicious satisfaction. Then, towel around his waist, he found himself a black garbage bag and jammed anything he could find that belonged to Jack in there, knotting the top and tugging the knot tight as if he was wringing a chicken’s neck. It felt oddly satisfying.

So that was Jack. Solved. Bagged.

The next problem was the notebook and what it meant for Insight, and that was going to be harder to compartmentalise and shove away. Brock did what he always did when he had a serious problem: he called Natasha.

‘ _Chyort vozmi_ ,’ said Natasha down the line when Brock finished explaining the situation. Her voice was vicious and quiet. Brock didn’t speak Russian, but he understood the tone that meant ‘fuck my life.’ ‘Brock, this isn’t good.’

‘You’re telling me.’

‘How much does he have? What does he know?’

‘Well,’ Brock said, ‘it’s notes and not, like, the plans for a nuclear submarine.’

‘Names?’

‘Initials, mostly. Lots of stuff on the early ideas we had about security, but we ditched half of those. He recognised some of the reports, some of the agencies and sources, though.’

Natasha made a considering noise.

‘That would reflect worse on the agencies than on us. What else?’

‘Uh, not much. Or at least, I think not much. I didn’t touch that notebook in months. Most of it was old, y’know, we had a ton of ideas that we didn’t use.’

‘Did he access your computer?’

‘No.’ On that point, Brock was certain. ‘Even Tony couldn’t get into my stuff without a few days of effort and some luck. You know that.’

‘I’m being thorough. ’

‘Okay, sure, thorough is good. Let’s be thorough. Cool.’

‘Is there any chance he could have had you followed?’

‘Jesus, that’s a bit paranoid.’

‘I know how these things go. I’m Russian, remember? Or at least, I was.’

‘Even if he had…’ Brock trailed off. The sick feeling in his stomach could have been the PopTarts, but Brock had the unpleasant suspicion that this was what a sudden dose of reality felt like. Intellectually knowing that acquiring and uploading large quantities of sensitive material to the internet came with a hefty prison sentence was one thing. Truly understanding that was another. Natasha recognised the severity of the situation immediately.

‘Is there?’ Natasha repeated.

‘He would have the resources, probably. I don’t think he ever did.’

‘You don’t _want_ to think he did.’

‘He was in some kind of trouble at work, because of me,’ mused Brock. ‘It can’t have been that bad because they didn’t fire him. I mean, why would they keep him around?’

‘What kind of trouble?’ Natasha pressed.

‘He was dating me, apparently I had to have some kind of background check, they thought he was telling me stuff about work.’ Brock spat out a short laugh. ‘Is that what irony is? I can never remember. I just know Alanis Morrisette was wrong.’

‘Focus, Brock,’ said Natasha. ‘Look, if I was working for the government and somebody thought I was leaking information, I would want to do something about that. And whether I was doing it or not, bringing in information about something illegal would be a good way to prove my loyalty.’ Brock sat for a minute and parsed the concept.

‘I chose _him_ ,’ he said, eventually. His voice came out small and flat, and Natasha clicked her tongue sympathetically. ‘It’s not like he— he groomed me on the internet. I saw him. He had no idea who I was.’

‘It would have been lucky for him, then. To find out that you had something that would get him off the hook.’

‘He wouldn’t have been _on_ the hook if he hadn’t been dating me.’

‘Maybe. I don’t know how the security services work here, but in Russia, if they want you out they’ll find a way. So perhaps that was it. They wanted him out, and you were a useful excuse.’

‘I just want to know,’ said Brock. ‘But I emailed him. I said I never wanted to speak to him again.’

‘He’d probably lie to you anyway,’ said Natasha, in a way that was evidently supposed to sound consoling. ‘Men do that, you know.’

‘ _I’m_ a man,’ said Brock with indignation cutting through his self-pity.

‘Yes, well,’ Natasha replied vaguely, and that was the end of that; she was moving on. ‘The important thing now is damage control. We launch within the week and we can’t have somebody knocking down the door. We should probably accelerate the launch date. And then - Brock, listen, I don’t think you should talk to Bucky about this in person.’

‘You don’t think it sounds better coming from you?’

‘I think it would be dire coming from you. Or anyone, in fact, but here’s what I think: I should tell Bucky what happened, and revoke your access to all our accounts.’

‘Nat—’ said Brock, the burning, tearful feeling welling up again in his raw throat.

‘Hopefully it won’t be for long. Hopefully we can sort this whole mess out after Insight is up.’

‘I helped Bucky come up with the idea,’ Brock said. He didn’t like the way his voice cracked.

‘He’ll remember that, Brock,’ said Natasha. ‘He will. Just give him time.’

When Natasha rang off, Brock’s wave of sadness returned in full force. A coil of anxiety tugged at him. He wanted to run, to box, to move; he also wanted to crawl under the covers and die. Soon, very soon, Natasha would call Bucky and all hell would break loose. Brock switched off his phone, watching the screen die with a combination of relief and sudden loneliness. He dragged himself onto his bed and waited. When, several hours later, he finally turned his computers back on, he didn’t check his email. He didn’t dare; Bucky would surely be filling up his inbox with paranoid rage because Brock’s phone was off. Instead, Brock navigated to the Insight log in page and typed in his information. As he suspected, his access had been denied.

* * *

**Memorandum**  
**To:** Sam Wilson  
**From:** Pepper Potts  
**Date:** 18 September 2015  
**Re:** Meeting schedule  
_Please schedule me into your diary at your earliest possible convenience. We have some administrative issues to address which, although minor, are causing a little blip in our system here at CD. Thanks!_

* * *

‘Whoops,’ said Maria, dropping her keys by Jack’s car just as he was climbing out. ‘Butterfingers.’ She crouched to pick them up and said to him, just loud enough to carry, ‘secret meeting, Sam’s office, lunch time.’ Jack locked his car and walked in step with her to the main entrance, amused by her ploy. It wasn’t outside of the realm of possibility that someone was keeping an eye on him, of course. Jack doubted it, but it was possible.

It was a grey day, the year sliding into a rainy autumn after the hot, languid summer. That was a metaphor for his life, Jack thought. Maria, slim and underdressed, shivered her away across the parking lot with her light jacket tugged tightly around her.

‘Serves you right,’ Jack couldn’t resist telling her, and she casually flipped him off. They buzzed into the building, headed upstairs and went their separate ways. Maria to her little office, windowless but private, and Jack to his desk on the main floor. He sat. More paperwork awaited him, and he chafed at it all morning, trying to hide his impatience and his lack of tolerance for the make work.

Maria and Jack often had lunch together, so it wasn’t unusual that they left together shortly after midday. The hallways of the Bureau got considerably emptier over lunchtime, and they made their way to Sam’s office without notice. Sam ushered them in and, to Jack’s surprise, Pepper was seated primly in one of the seats.

‘Is it a party?’ Maria asked.

‘Kinda,’ Sam told her, and seated himself. He was natty in blue and gold today, sharply-pressed trousers and shiny shoes. He and Pepper, sitting next to one another, looked like a power-couple from some business venture. Sam adjusted his cuffs and got straight down to business. ‘We’ve got a problem, kids, and it’s a big one.’

‘It goes right to the top,’ Pepper confirmed.

‘Jack, I told you Pepper was working on a little project for me.’ He gave a grim smile. ‘Turns out, it’s not so little. Pep, you want to explain?’

‘Sure, Sam.’ Pepper opened a file onto her lap. ‘For the past six months I’ve been working as Alexander Pierce’s assistant, trying to identify the source of an intel leak. We knew a couple of things about the source going in. First, they were working in CD. Second, they’d been active for about a year, but possibly longer depending on their skill. Third, we’d been unsuccessful in developing a list of suspects through traditional methods, so we had to assume that the individual in question was already well-established in their department.’

Jack let out a breath. He thought he’d managed to conceal it, but the others looked at him with sympathy.

‘That weasel,’ Maria said, and it took Jack a minute to catch up. Pepper was already forging on ahead, though, handing him the answer.

‘It’s taken a while, but I’ve managed to gather a fairly conclusive portfolio of evidence suggesting that Pierce has been selling government secrets regarding CD cryptography research to a number of private companies. Mostly notably, Stark Industries, but there are at least two more that I’ve found.’

‘It falls on me to take this higher up the chain,’ Sam said, ‘but I figured that we should put your minds at rest.’ He nodded to Jack and Maria.

‘I’m the fall guy,’ Jack muttered. ‘Fucking wonderful.’

‘Look on the bright side,’ Maria said. ‘At least you know who’s doing it. I just figured that Rogers hated you.’

‘He probably does,’ said Jack. ’So, what’s the plan?’

‘For you?’ Sam said. ‘Hide in a bathroom all week. Take some sick leave. You’re horrible at politics.’

‘Thanks.’

‘For me and Pepper, we’re taking this on up the chain.’

‘Your reputation’s spotless,’ Maria commented to Sam. ‘There’s no way Pierce survives this. It’ll probably take Rogers down, too. His little protege.’

‘It’s the one unfair thing about this whole mess,’ said Pepper. ‘I mean, Steve is insufferable, but he’s not a bad guy. He’s just been under Pierce’s wing too long to avoid suspicion.’

‘They’re going to make him do so much bullshit paperwork,’ Maria said, with a ugly kind of glee.

‘Question,’ said Jack, trying to sort through all the information in his mind. ‘Why me?’

‘What, existentially speaking?’ Maria asked in her smart-ass way. Sam chuckled.

‘You’re the obvious target,’ Pepper said, with a shrug that set her ponytail swinging. ‘You’re new to the department, you made yourself unpopular, you don’t ride on people’s coat-tails so you’ve no mentor or protector. It was just good luck for Pierce that you showed up when you did. He must have realised there was something odd about my transfer and moved to dispel suspicion. Your new relationship was a great excuse.’

‘Did he _know_ ,’ Jack began, slowly and carefully, before trailing off. ‘Not that I’m implicating myself here, but he’s not spotless, or anything.’

‘Pierce?’ That was Pepper, confused.

‘No, the, uh,’ Jack cleared his throat, suddenly embarrassed. ‘My. Him.’ Maria howled with laughter, and Sam and Pepper dissolved immediately after. ‘What? What’s so god damn funny? I swear, you fucking nerds—’

‘Jack,’ said Maria finally, wiping her eyes, ‘literally nobody thought you’d be dating a choirboy. Jesus. That’s what made it such a good excuse. It didn’t have to be true, it just had to be believable.’

‘You’d bring a stripper to an office party and punch anyone who commented,’ agreed Sam. ‘You’re a great field agent and a tough son-of-a-bitch, but I swear the FBI hired you just so we didn’t have to go up against you.’

‘Luck, like I said,’ Pepper told him kindly. ‘All it took was a quick peek into your phone records, that sort of thing, and Pierce would have been able to make the inference. Sam did some trawling through our anonymous tip service, found a message from CD’s IP address and we were able to trace it to Pierce’s computer.’

‘… and Rogers was all over it as soon as he saw my name,’ Jack said, ‘because he’s technically my boss. This shit makes my head hurt.’

‘It’s what we do,’ Sam said, with reassurance in his voice. ‘It’s Pepper’s job to notice things that don’t look right, and my job to connect the dots. If it’s any consolation, it took us months of puzzling.’

‘All right,’ said Jack, feeling somehow like he was conceding a point. ‘What now?’

‘Now, you and Maria go back to work like nothing happened, and me and Pepper have some meetings to schedule.’

‘We missed lunch,’ said Jack in the elevator.

‘Is that why you’re a grumpy bear?’ Maria asked. ‘I think I’ve got a granola bar in my desk.’

‘I’m not eating a granola bar.’

‘The masculinity feeling a little fragile today?’

‘No, they just taste like shit.’ Jack tapped the teeth on the right side of his face. ‘Plus I got some fake teeth. Granola fucks them up.’

‘Did you just share something about yourself?’ Maria looked amused.

‘Yeah.’

‘Look at you, interacting like a normal human.’

‘There are days, Hill,’ Jack said, but he gave her a half-smile, feeling conspiratorial and close to her, like they were on a secret team. Like he had someone he could rely on.


	10. Chapter 10

**Memorandum**  
**To:** Steven G. Rogers  
**From:** Phil Coulson  
**Date:** 20 September 2015  
**Re:** Bad luck   
_… which doesn’t surprise me. I am surprised he even thought about it. He doesn’t seem the type. Stupid, but loyal, I always thought. Occasional flashes of procedural talent but I’m inclined to think the Gregory case was a fluke. As for advice, I don’t think you need it. Protocol will take over now and the Bureau will launch an investigation. You’ll be asked for a statement, which isn’t difficult. Just be honest. It was a good catch, Steve. Nobody’s going to blame you for Rollins’ misconduct - you did everything you should have done._

* * *

 The clock on the mantelpiece ticked away, monotonous and soothing. It was the only noise in the room. Outside, the odd bird cheeped but everything was quiet, the still of a late autumn Sunday morning wrapping around the house. Jack had a mug of coffee resting on the arm of the chair, half-cold and half-finished. He’d been staring off into middle distance for quite some time, letting the disparate chunks of information that Pepper and Sam had handed him slowly slot together in his mind. On paper, he could see how it all worked, but the thing about Jack’s mind was that he really had to work to grok the subtleties of these situations. He replayed his interactions with Coulson, with Fury, with Rogers. With Pierce, cold and disapproving in his office. It’d be a lie to say he knew Pierce was crooked from the start, but fuck, he hadn’t liked the guy one bit. Go figure.

It was unnecessary to stew over it all. Jack chided himself silently. Tactically speaking, there was very little he might have done differently at work. Sure, he could have been less of an ass to Coulson, but Coulson was a prissy, self-important suit and the most important thing at the time had been bringing Miranda Gregory to justice. Bygones, and all that. He brought his coffee mug to his mouth and grimaced. _You tragic bastard,_ he berated himself. _Sitting around drinking cold coffee._ He propelled himself out of the chair with probably unnecessary force and dropped his mug in the kitchen sink. Honesty compelled him to admit to himself that it wasn’t the vagaries of office politics that had him brooding and angsting about. It wasn’t Pierce’s treachery or Rogers’ kiss-ass attitude that made him unable to focus even on his current bike project, or on drinking a mug of coffee before it got cold.

Introspection and emotion held little appeal for Jack. Action, that was the thing. So he stamped his feet into his boots and methodically tied the laces. He slipped on one of his bike jackets, too old to be properly protective but supple and worn and comfortable in all the right places. He spared a glance at his face in the small mirror hanging in the hall - he could use a haircut and he looked tired. A day of stubble was coming in. With the padded leather jacket giving him bulk, at least nobody would argue with him. He was an old dog. Maybe an old dog out of tricks. Jack rather thought he had one or two good ideas left, though. The Bureau’s offices would be all but empty today. Why not have a snoop around?

Jack hauled himself up into his truck. No need to take the car today. No need for the trappings of respectability. Besides, he kept a small firearm in the glovebox of the truck, and there was a crawling, irritated feeling up the back of his neck that, in the field, had always reliably predicted trouble. The roads were empty on the drive into DC. Nobody in their right mind wanted to head into the city on a Sunday afternoon, so Jack went heavy on the gas pedal and tried to let himself enjoy the feel of the engine and the remnants of the summer. Still, as he got closer and closer the itchy, crawling feeling under his skin became ever more pronounced. Some might call it anxiety, but Jack recognised it only as a precursor to conflict. He reached out and popped open the glovebox, satisfying himself that his weapon was there, cleaned and loaded, just in case.

A few miles out of town, Jack pulled over into an all-but-deserted gas station. He bought a thin cup of coffee and a tired donut and cranked his chair back to eat it. Neither was worth the $3.50 he paid, but then, he wasn’t hungry. He chewed mechanically. The coffee was bitter but it served to wash the sugar from his mouth. Jack lobbed the cup into the garbage can out his window and then rested his forehead on the steering wheel and groaned. Fine. It wasn’t about work, or coffee, or serving his shitbox goddamn country, or the lurking threat of violence, or the handgun in the glovebox. It was about Brock. He was just about to drive to Brock’s. It was inevitable, and had been inevitable from the moment he woke up.

 _There, I’ve said it to myself. Is that good enough for you?_ Jack asked Fate, dimly aware that sarcasm was probably a poor strategy but too irritated to phrase it more tactfully. He started the engine and got back on the road.

Twenty minutes later, he pulled up a little way down the block from Brock’s building. The street was mostly empty, all the dingy little shops and takeouts closed up. They’d be open later, but it wasn’t yet lunchtime. Down at street level the sun struggled to filter through the buildings, and the wind was picking up. It blew some trash across the street, and reminded Jack of tumbleweeds in an old Western. The fleeting mental image did nothing to make him feel less on edge. He opened the glovebox, pulled out his gun, checked the safety and then slid it into the back of his belt. His jacket would cover it and nobody would be any the wiser. He got out the truck and locked it. When he reached the grubby store under Brock’s apartment, he noticed that Brock’s lights were on. And then he saw the street door, hanging open with a half-moon shaped split in the wood. That was the impact mark of a boot heel; the uneven gouge left by someone kicking a door open. The itching, prickling feeling under Jack’s skin peaked, and he slid into the peculiar calm alertness that he had always experienced in the field. The sounds of the wind and the city faded away into the distance as his ears strained to pick up the noises of conflict. Voices or movement or breathing.

He crept in through the door and paused at the bottom of the stairs. There were voices above; one man, one woman. The first angry, the second cautious. Jack side-stepped up the stairs, keeping his feet to the edges so as to avoid any creaking. By the sound of it, Brock’s door wasn’t closed and he didn’t want to alert whoever was up there. Moving slowly and deliberately, Jack took out his gun, thumbed off the safety and held it low. His finger rested along the barrel. He reached the narrow little landing and tucked in close by the wall, creeping a boot-length at a time to the door. He could see the back of the man, now, just inside the room. A touch shorter than Jack, muscular but lean, with a vicious-looking metal prosthetic arm. The guy was in a competent-looking Weaver stance, and Jack ran suddenly and intensely hot at the thought of someone training a gun on Brock.

 _Someone._ Jack processed the metal arm. This had to be Bucky, the loudmouth, loose-cannon fuck-up that Brock had mentioned. So the girl was probably Natasha, the Russian. And they had another one too, the kid. Potentially four people in the apartment, most likely one weapon. The heavy boots that Bucky was wearing could easily have taken the door downstairs apart. Everything clicked into place with an ease that only happened to Jack when his blood was thrumming through his veins and the potential for danger was high.

Brock spoke, and Jack’s ears pricked up like a dog’s. Brock’s voice was wavering, nervous.

‘I told you, I can’t explain the logins. You can check my computers. If it was me logging in, I’d do it with my own account. I don’t know who created the guest logins.’

‘Everything points to you.’ That was Bucky, in a voice tight with anger. He sounded young, although Brock had said the guy had done a couple tours. Well, that fucked a man up fast.

‘So check. Check my activity. You know how.’

‘Sure, so I can see how great you are at covering your tracks. The IP addresses were scrambled around or blocked. So you know that won’t work.’

‘Bucky,’ said the woman’s voice. ‘We can sort this out without the gun. Brock will be a lot more capable of answering you when you’re not freaking him out.’

Jack took three careful steps to his right so that he was standing behind Bucky. Brock came into view, frozen against the far wall. A red-headed girl was in the middle of the room, her hands raised as if trying to placate Bucky, and a dark-haired, scrawny kid was sitting in Brock’s chair with his feet drawn up. Now that he was in close, Jack could see that he was bigger than the kid, taller and heavier. He brought his weapon up slowly, and it was then that Brock saw him. Brock’s whole demeanour changed; his gaze slid past Bucky and in gave a quick inhale as if he wanted to say something.

 _God damn it,_ thought Jack. As Bucky registered that there was someone behind him and spun around, Jack lashed out, snapping the back of his hand against Bucky’s wrist. Both their guns went flying and then Jack lunged in, taking Bucky to the floor with an arm around his neck. Bucky hit the ground with a stifled shout, and Jack got a knee in the small of his back, pinning his arms down.

‘Relax,’ Jack told him through gritted teeth; the guy was strong, and his prosthetic arm was like nothing Jack had ever seen or heard of. It was taking most of Jack’s strength to keep him down as he writhed and fought in a way that must have been agony on his shoulders. He reached a hand up to Bucky’s hair and smacked his head into the floor, just hard enough to hurt. ‘You’re not going anywhere. Knock it off.’ Bucky was cursing at him, telling him to go fuck himself, that he knew Jack had been spying on him, that he wasn’t scared of the government. His pulse was hammering away in his neck. It was clearly visible under his skin.

‘Oh my God,’ said Brock weakly from the doorway, a blurry figure in Jack’s peripheral vision. Jack turned his head to look at Brock. The redhead came up beside him, looking unnervingly calm for a civilian.

‘This is the guy?’ she said with cool appraisal. ‘I guess he knows how to make an entrance.’

‘Get this fucker off me!’ shouted Bucky, twisting and almost throwing Jack off.

‘Stop it,’ Jack told him. ‘I’m not arresting you. I’m not even hurting you. You keep this up and I’ll restrain you properly.’ That made Bucky kick out, and try to throw his head back to Jack’s face. Jack sighed. ‘Brock, you got any zip ties?’

‘Yeah.’ Surprisingly, Brock went to fetch some. Jack secured Bucky’s wrists and then rolled him over and hauled him up to sit against the wall just inside the apartment. As he stood, Jack realised that he was sweating.

‘Right,’ he said, wiping his hands on his jeans. He fetched his gun, slid the safety back on and tucked it back into his waistband. ‘All of you stop looking at me like I’m an ogre. I’m not fucking arresting anyone today.’ He jerked his thumb inside and Brock and Natasha shuffled in. Jack closed the door and stood against it, his legs wide and his arms folded.

‘How do we know—?’ Bucky began, and Jack smacked him on the back of the head.

‘Bucky,’ he said, pointing at him but looking Brock. ‘Natasha. Tony.’ Brock nodded confirmation. ‘Wonderful. The gang’s all here. Jesus Christ, would you stop snivelling?’ The last was to Tony, who was tearful in the computer chair.

‘Why _are_ you here?’ Brock said cautiously. ‘Did you know… what was happening?’

‘Nah. I was heading into work. I came here instead. You kids are lucky I did.’

‘Spare us the wisdom of the ancients,’ said Natasha with a roll of her big eyes.

‘I told you I didn’t want to see you, anyway,’ said Brock. He was prickling up like a cat, all haughty and pissed off now that the danger was averted. It was a real struggle for Jack not to smile. God damn, but he liked it when Brock was a little firecracker. 'So what're you doing in my apartment?'

‘Here’s the thing.’ Jack started slowly. ‘There’s a limit to what I can tell you here but it looks like I’ve been set up at work. There’s a leak in my department - a powerful guy, a real fucking asshole. I showed up at the right time and he figured that Brock was a good excuse to dump the blame on me. Came over to, you know. Clear the air.’

‘I thought FBI agents were supposed to be smart.’ That was Natasha again.

‘I can be a politician or I can disarm guys pointing guns at you. Take your pick, girlie.’

‘So you really didn’t tell them anything about us?’ Brock asked. There was an aching note of hope in his voice and Jack felt a little sliver of his cynical heart crack away, like centuries-old dirt chipped off a monument.

‘Nah,’ said Jack. ‘I had to know what you were up to, though. I had to know if you were a security threat. If you were sneaking about and passing on secrets, that’d make me culpable too as far as my job’s concerned.’ He shrugged. ‘You can do shit with computers that I’ve never heard of. Could probably read half my email by the time I took a piss.’

‘That might be an exaggeration,’ Brock said with a poor imitation of modesty, but he preened a little nonetheless. ’There,’ he burst out then, looking at Bucky with an air of self-righteousness. ‘See? It wasn’t me. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t tell him anything.’ Tony made a small noise when Brock raised his voice, a whimper, maybe. Natasha cut her eyes across to him.

‘Got an old friend who could probably help you figure that out,’ Jack said. ‘Unless you dumb kids aren’t planning on changing the President’s screensaver to flying dicks, or something. Sam was a tearaway back in the day. He knows when to turn a blind eye.’

‘Don’t!’ Tony said suddenly from the chair, his voice cracking in the middle of the word. ‘Just… don’t get the FBI to look into it.’

‘You in some kind of trouble with the law?’ Jack asked. It was hard to imagine the scrawny little guy with a rap sheet, but weirder things had been known. At the word ‘trouble,’ Tony’s face screwed up with tears.

‘It was— I had to do it,’ he said. ‘I had to tell him about Insight. He didn’t give me any other choice.’ Bucky was looking murderous; he was trying to get his feet under him to stand. Natasha held up a hand.

‘Let’s hear him out.’

‘Who didn’t give you any other choice?’ Brock said. An uncomfortable sort of realisation had dawned on everyone’s face; a mixture of betrayal and intense discomfort. Brock was hugging himself, as he did, and Natasha was poised and wary.

‘A friend of my dad’s. He’s known me since I was born. He’s known my dad their whole lives.’ Tony wiped his nose on his sleeve. ‘He was going to tell my dad stuff about me.’

‘What kind of stuff?’ Jack asked. Hell, what kind of secrets could a kid his age be keeping?

‘I don’t really get on with my dad,’ Tony said. ‘We don’t talk a whole lot. He disapproves of pretty much everything I do. So I talk to Obie - that’s the friend, Obie Stane - and he gives me life advice and stuff. And we were talking about my year out, and college, and he wanted me to tell him about Insight so he knew I wasn’t wasting my year.’ He looked over at Jack. ‘I’m like, I’m pretty good with computers. Like, better than pretty much anyone.’

‘That’s true,’ Brock put in, and Natasha nodded. Even Bucky shrugged agreement, through his smouldering, palpable anger on the floor.

‘This guy wanted to know about your project,’ said Jack. ‘Or what?’ Tony made a sound like somebody was twisting his arm.

‘There was a _guy_. I was seeing him for a while. My dad is super into me going to MIT and marrying a society girl and having Stark Junior the Third and taking over the company. I can’t be into men. It’s bad PR. But Obie found out, and he said if I didn’t tell him what my project was, so he could use it to improve Stark’s IT department and make my dad proud, that he’d out me to my dad.’ Tony was a slim kid who’d not come into his final growth, so when he finished and his shoulders slumped he looked almost childlike. Natasha made a clucking noise with her tongue and went over, perching on the arm of the chair and putting her hand on his back.

‘Jesus,’ said Bucky into the silence that followed Tony’s breathless monologue. ‘What a sleazy piece of shit that guy is.’

‘Totally,’ agreed Brock. ‘Who even _does_ that?’

‘Someone who cares more about ensuring Tony’s long-term compliance than his science fair project,’ said Jack very slowly, in a blinding moment of clarity that Sam would have been proud of. ‘Perhaps it’s all the work bullshit I’ve been dealing with lately, but I don’t fucking like the idea of some guy leaning on the Stark kid, when the Stark kid is set to inherit the business that pulls in 70% of the US government’s weapons contracts.’

There was a long and uncomfortable silence, broken only by Tony’s occasional, half-stifled wet breath. Jack folded his arms across his chest and glared around the room, annoyed. Annoyed that he’d come all the way out here, annoyed that now he had these babies to look out for. Annoyed that he’d saddled himself with more work shit. He patted down his pockets for his phone.

‘Are you going to—?’ Brock began. Jack cut him off.

‘I am _not_ going to arrest you, Christ. I’m calling that friend I mentioned.’ He surveyed the room. ‘You,’ he said to Tony, pointing with his phone, ‘should fuck off home. And stop talking to your weird old uncle.’ Tony slid off the seat hurriedly, his legs tangling, and made a beeline for the door. Then Jack turned his gaze on Bucky. ‘What am I going to do with you?’ he mused out loud. Natasha stepped in.

‘You should come and stay with me for a while, Bucky. Just for a bit.’ Jack made a disapproving noise; Natasha turned and gave him a scathing look. She reached one arm under Brock’s bed, slid out Bucky’s gun and pushed it across the floor to Jack. ‘Happy now, old man?’ she said. She turned back to Bucky. ‘Seriously. We’ll find you someone to talk to - or not, if you don’t want to - but you should have some company.’ Bucky gazed at her, his eyes shadowed and tired.

‘Don’t trust me?’ he said, his voice sounding heavy.

‘ _Doveryai, no proveryai_ ,’ Natasha said pragmatically. She leaned into him and whispered something very quietly, and Bucky nodded and rested his forehead on her shoulder for the briefest moment. ‘Brock, get me scissors or a knife,’ Natasha ordered, and Brock handed her over a penknife from the detritus on his desk. Natasha cut the ziptie holding Bucky.

Somewhere along the line, Jack had lost control of the situation. He didn’t like that feeling at all, and he’d had rather a lot of it lately. Still, short of taking Bucky into custody, there was little he could do. And, standing by the window with his hands in his pockets, Brock was watching Jack.

By the time Bucky and Natasha left, walking close together and talking softly, Jack felt drained. His phone was still in his hand, ready to call Sam, but then Brock was coming over, picking his way over dirty laundry to press into Jack’s chest, his hands fisted. He didn’t reach out to hug Jack, or say anything. One minute he was leaning against the wall, the next he was standing up in Jack’s personal space with his head on Jack’s shoulder and his balled hands on Jack’s chest. The smell of his hair gel and his deodorant and his skin washed over Jack in a rush of nostalgia. Brock sighed, his body slackening and relaxing. No control over his life, Jack noted again. It felt inevitable to respond to Brock, to bring his arms up and hold him. He was as he always had been, muscular and compact and short enough to tuck his head under Jack’s chin.

‘You can’t stay here,’ Jack found himself saying. ‘Lock’s broken. And there’s no telling what your friend will do.’

‘I don’t have anywhere else to go,’ Brock said, in a small voice that was, Jack was sure, at least seventy five percent artifice.

‘For God’s sake,’ Jack said, ‘pack a goddamn bag. My truck’s downstairs.’


	11. Chapter 11

**From:** DateMe cancel@dateme.com  
**To:** Crossbones crossbones@hydraconsulting.com  
**Date:** 28 September 2015 at 08:34  
**Subject:** Cancelling your account

_Hey, hunnybadger, we have cancelled your account with us! We’re sad to see you go, but we hope this means you’ve found love through our dating service._

* * *

Jack grunted as Brock swung himself over the cup holders and deposited himself directly onto his lap. It was very satisfactory, the noise he made as Brock let his weight drop. Even more satisfactory was the way Jack’s hands came up to rest on Brock’s ass.

‘Just because I told you to come and stay with me,’ Jack began in a warning tone, and then gave up.

‘Right, totally no fucking implied,’ said Brock. He lifted his arms above his head, forearms to the truck roof, and rolled his hips forward. Nobody could see. Jack lived in the middle of nowhere, in a slightly lopsided blue-grey house set in the middle of a lot of fields. That was just as well. Brock was pretty sure that after the week he’d had it’d take more than FBI training and a gun to stop him taking up permanent residence on Jack’s dick.

‘I got stuff to do,’ Jack told him, pulling Brock’s hips down and grinding against him. He wouldn’t quite look Brock in the eye, and the way he was holding on to Brock gave away how little he wanted Brock to stop.

‘Stuff can wait,’ countered Brock. He trailed his hands forward a few inches so he was leaning in over Jack. Close enough that Jack’s breath was warm on his neck. Jack took the bait, stretching up and pressing a kiss to the hollow of Brock’s throat. ‘Stuff can wait,’ Brock repeated, more insistently this time.

‘National security stuff,’ Jack said into Brock’s skin. He’d not shaved that morning and his face was distractingly rough on the tender parts of Brock’s neck. Jack reached to fumble his door open and slid one foot out. It was a long way down, and Brock found himself clinging to Jack’s neck, legs around his waist like a limpet. He wasn’t light - a solid welterweight - but Jack hauled him out of the truck and across the gravel at the front of the house. He dropped Brock onto a battered recliner on the front porch and threw his keys into Brock’s lap. ‘In you go,’ he said, nodding at the front door.

Brock fought with the lock for a minute and then he was pushing the door open and walking into a quiet house that smelled like Jack. The house was too old to be large by modern standards, but it had been carefully renovated and it was warm and inviting in a faintly rustic way. Quality, Brock thought - that was it. It was all well-made and hard-wearing. The late afternoon sun was weak but it filtered in through the windows and across the old wooden floors and made the place look appealing. Nicer than turning the lights on, Brock thought, thinking of his little apartment. Brock creaked over the floorboards and went into the living room. A hint of wood smoke from the fire hung in the air. He stretched himself out on the brown leather sofa, letting his t-shirt ride up and flinging his arms over his head. It never failed, particularly not on Jack.

Ten minutes later, Jack had failed to materialise and fuck him. Brock got tired of waiting. He toured around the room looking at the books and poking through Jack’s weird assortment of music. He’d been to Jack’s house precisely twice before, always late at night. Jack had hustled him upstairs to the bedroom both times. In the morning, they’d left early with just enough time for a quick shower and breakfast. Brock hadn’t seen most of the house in daylight, had never seen this room, never seen Jack’s workshop or garage. There was another bedroom upstairs - or another room, anyway - with a door that had stayed infuriatingly closed.

‘Right,’ Jack said from behind him and Brock jumped. ‘Had to phone a friend about Stark Jr’s little problem. Don’t worry - I was discreet.’ He looked penetratingly at Brock, whose fingers were a little dusty from poking around in the CDs. ‘Just going to put the truck away and make coffee. You got the run of the house.’ That felt like extraordinary license, coming from Jack. Brock finished his circuit of the lounge, poked his head into the kitchen and the well-stocked pantry, and then made his way up the stairs, trailing his fingers along the smooth wood of the railings. They were old, too, but someone - Jack - had worked on them so that the natural grain of the wood came through warm and rich. The bathroom was boring, and the second room turned out to be locked. There was an old-fashioned keyhole and Brock peeped through but could see nothing except a plain white wall and an empty expanse of carpet. He turned away and, with an easy leap, batted at the cord that hung down from the attic trapdoor. Maybe he’d ask Jack what he kept up there sometime.

He moved on. The bedroom. Brock knew the bedroom. He rolled on the bed for a moment, over the thick down duvet and the soft, aging mattress. He pushed his face into Jack’s pillow and inhaled the smell of him. Opened the cabinet by the bed and looked inside. Books and lube and a small handgun and condoms and two packages of new socks. An old brown leather belt, soft and worn with age, that made Brock’s breath catch in his throat. There was a baseball bat under the bed. Jack had some serious paranoia happening, Brock reckoned, or maybe that was just what you did if you lived in the middle of nowhere.

Brock rolled back onto the bed. Back home he had two or three mismatched blankets. Here, Jack’s bed was made with proper linen, soft cotton and eiderdown and everything matching in a sailorly blue and white pinstripe. He stretched, arched, revelling in the crisp, cool sheets. A little line of sunshine cut across his foot. Brock felt like one of those cats in internet videos, all fucked up on catnip, but he couldn’t stop burying his face in Jack’s bed. He twisted onto his belly, diagonal across the bed.

‘You want me to take a picture?’ Jack said from the doorway. Brock turned his face up to look over. Jack was leaning against the door frame, two coffee mugs in one hand. He brought one over for Brock, who snatched at it eagerly. He knew how good Jack’s homemade coffee was.

‘I want coffee,’ Brock said, blowing on it to cool it. ‘And I want a shower. God, and I want to get laid, I’m gonna die if you don’t fuck me later.’

‘I want, I want,’ said Jack, amused. He was standing casually, shoulder flush against the doorjamb, but his eyes never left Brock. One thick finger ran around the inside of the mug handle. Brock thought he knew Jack well enough to identify when he was on edge, but this was something else. Was he nervous? That seemed desperately out of character. Jack slouched across the room and leaned one hip on the windowsill. The light was starting to fade now, and the countryside was flattening into grey. Jack closed the curtains. Brock gulped down the rest of his coffee; the silence was suddenly deafening and he wanted to disrupt it. Jack had brought him here of his own volition. Brock felt, in some battered part of his psyche, that he should somehow capitalise upon that gesture. He hastily set the empty mug aside and put his feet on the floor. Jack tensed, put down his own cup.

‘I do want—’ Brock began, and then Jack took two quick steps over and engulfed him, big arms getting him in a bear hug. Jack’s weight carried him down onto the bed with a huff of breath and Brock hardly had time to breathe in again before Jack was kissing him, tasting like coffee and desperation. In a moment, Brock was hard and rubbing up against Jack’s strong thigh with no shame, none at all, horny like a teenager with no outlet but his right hand. Jack nipped at him, pressed his shoulders down and then changed his mind, lacing his fingers with Brock’s and reaching his arms up so they were body-to-body, as much of them touching as possible.

Brock moaned. He’d forgotten - he’d almost forgotten - the weight of Jack’s body on his, the way he kissed as if trying to win a fight. The sense that at any moment, Jack’s firm grip could turn crushing. It made his blood run hot. It made him want to fight back, so that Jack had to restrain him. He wanted to invite retaliation.

‘Did you miss me?’ he said in a rush when Jack broke away for a breath. Jack laughed.

‘Didn’t miss your smart mouth,’ he said, and Brock wriggled out from under him. Jack let him go.

‘Are you sure?’ Brock asked, and he slid down Jack’s body and started tugging open his belt and jeans. He found his mouth watering for Jack’s cock. When he finally got it free from Jack’s clothes, Brock wasted no time in admiration or preparation. He let the head push past his lips, invading his mouth, velvety and warm. Brock had probably given sloppier blowjobs while drunk, but not by much. He gripped the base of Jack’s cock with his right hand, left hand resting on Jack’s hip, and went to work. He sucked until his jaw hurt, working Jack so that his hands fisted in the covers and his breath came raw.

‘Fine,’ Jack said, his voice thick and strained. ‘The smart mouth can stay.’ He tugged Brock up the bed by the hair and Brock’s eyes rolled back in his head for a moment at the casual way Jack manhandled him. Jack’s hands were on his scalp and his skin and down the back of his jeans, and Brock fought his way out of his belt, trying to get skin to skin. When they were both half-naked - good enough, quicker - Jack spat into his palm and fisted his fingers around Brock’s dick. He jerked Brock quick and firm and Brock whined, fucking Jack’s hand. He fumbled for Jack’s spit-wet cock and stroked him. One of Jack’s hands found the back of his head and guided him in for a kiss, and for a few desperate minutes Brock could think of nothing but tongues and teeth and Jack’s rough palm on him. He was hot all over, his blood rushing in his ears. Jack’s thigh tensed where it was pressed against Brock’s, and Jack groaned, threw his head back and came over Brock’s hand. His fingers tightened on Brock’s cock and he was vicious, almost. That, and the feeling of Jack coming in his palm, tipped Brock over the edge. He shuddered, convulsed, and spent himself in Jack’s hand. Jack kissed at his open mouth, loose and satiated. Brock grinned, and grinned, and sank back into the covers with his eyes closed, feeling all staticky and good. Jack didn’t move for a while. They stayed pressed together at the hip until it got dark.

* * *

Brock had dialled back on his freelance work with the anticipation of Insight launching, and now he found himself almost completely unoccupied. Jack left him to sleep in the mornings and went to work. He’d pointed out the old DVD player and the television, and told Brock to eat whatever he wanted. For the first few days, Brock trailed downstairs at midday, ate miscellaneous leftovers or peanut butter sandwiches, reheated Jack’s morning coffee pot in the microwave and then curled up on the sofa to watch weird old Westerns all day from Jack’s box sets. There was wifi, but it was shockingly bad. Brock begged the passwords from Jack and did some tweaking, speeding things up and improving the coverage. (‘Paying your way,’ Jack had said, amused, before suggesting a number of less technical ways that Brock could earn his room and board.)

On the Wednesday after Bucky’s meltdown, Jack came home early and sat heavily on the sofa beside Brock. Brock paused the movie, black and white horses freezing in midair, all blurred with their tails streaming behind them.

‘You look bummed out,’ Brock observed, sliding down the couch until he could lie with his head and shoulders in Jack’s lap.

‘I quit,’ Jack said, as if he was surprised by the revelation.

‘Fuck. Why? The whole… thing?’

‘With you? Not really. I heard back from my buddy about this Stane guy. Turns out he had his fingers in a lot of pies. Blackmailing your kid friend was the least of it.’ Jack paused and scratched his neck. ‘Can’t tell you everything, obviously. There’s a bit of a network of these guys, selling information and passing it back and forth. Industry and government are incestuous, right? Lots of money floating around, lots of intel. So Stane’s a part of that, and so’s the guy who set me up - my boss. My ex-boss.’

‘So you have to quit because some guy fucked you over? And some other guy who knows my friend fucked _him_ over?’ Brock frowned. Politics was so dumb. Obviously you couldn’t trust the government. ‘Obviously you can’t trust the government,’ he said out loud, and Jack snorted.

‘Can’t trust anyone.’

‘Okay, though, why did you quit?’

‘Principle of the thing,’ Jack said. He shuffled awkwardly on the sofa, jostling Brock. ‘Not that I’m a fucking - I dunno - moral avenger, or anarchist, or something. But fuck it. The Bureau was starting to lose its charm.’ Brock grinned up at Jack.

‘That’s hilarious,’ he said. Jack, with an attack of ethics. Brilliant.

‘Pure luck that I ended up in the middle of this,’ Jack said. ‘Whole thing started because you and me got together. Well, Pierce would probably have found a way to fuck me over eventually.’

‘You caught Stane though, right? Like, it’s a big deal? You and your friend exploded evil government secrets, or something.’

‘Yeah.’ Jack allowed the point with a shrug. ‘Fury offered me my old job back. Name’s cleared and all that. I told him I’d think about it.’

‘I can pick up work again,’ Brock said hurriedly and Jack absently patted his chest.

‘Money’s not a problem. House is paid off. I got a friend could use some help at his chop shop. Might like that for a while.’

‘Oh, fuck,’ said Brock, ‘tank top and workboots.’ He closed his eyes and let the vivid mental image form behind them, Jack coming home every day dirty and sweating and bare-armed. He licked his top lip.

‘That’s all you think about, huh?’

‘I used to think about, like, security and politics and serious shit,’ said Brock dreamily, his eyes still closed. ‘And then I ended up dating a government stooge and everything got fucked up.’

‘Ex-government stooge,’ corrected Jack, and he leaned over and picked up the remote control to press play. ‘Winchester ’73,’ he said approvingly. ‘Great fuckin’ movie.’

* * *

‘Ugh,’ said Brock one morning, looking into his duffel bag. ‘I need to do laundry. And I need more than one pair of jeans.’

‘Why bother?’ Jack said from the doorway, a towel around his waist and his hair dripping down onto his shoulders. ‘Just walk around naked. No neighbours here.’

‘Ugh,’ Brock repeated. He opened Jack’s dresser and filched a pair of boxers - too big but good enough, for now. ‘Can I take the truck?’

‘Laundry in the basement,’ said Jack. ‘You don’t have to go anywhere for it.’

‘I want some stuff from home,’ Brock said. He’d been living with a couple of changes of clothes, a laptop and his phone. Not even his own hair gel.

‘I’ll drive you,’ Jack told him. Brock hunted down the cleanest clothes he could and borrowed socks from Jack which balled up in the toes of his sneakers. They stopped on the way into town at a weird little roadside diner which Jack swore did great breakfast, and ate eggs and bacon and bagels and savagely strong coffee. Brock turned his nose up at the coffee and ordered a Coke instead, but the bacon was good and Jack tolerated him stealing an extra slice, even. Driving away from Jack’s lonely house and back to civilisation felt like returning to normality. From the passenger seat, Brock remembered his phone and started furiously texting his friends, the signal getting stronger as they neared DC. Brock had sent Natasha a couple of emails since the past weekend, but aside from that their little group had been quiet on the radar.

Natasha had evidently missed him - or as close as she came to it - because when they reached Brock’s apartment she was loitering outside, bundled up in a black coat and a hat. She came upstairs with them without a word.

‘How’s Bucky?’ Brock asked once they were inside. Natasha shrugged.

‘He’s not too bad,’ she said. ‘He’s bored, without the project, but he’s also calmer. He’s seeing a therapist.’

‘Tony?’

‘Don’t know.’

Brock cast a look sideways at Jack, questioning: can I tell her? Jack did something vaguely permissive with his eyebrows, which Brock took as consent. As he started pulling cables out of his router, he explained the situation with Stane, a thumbnail sketch that nonetheless made Natasha look concerned. Of course: she’d know about a thousand ways that it was fucked up.

‘Nothing necessarily links Stark to us,’ mused Natasha. ‘Although I suppose someone could pick through Stane’s data and find out.’

‘You’re keeping people on hold, aren’t you?’ Brock realised. Natasha had been in charge of managing potential sources, and she was an absolute master at leaving people hanging and making them feel good about it. Hell, it was basically her day job. Natasha inspected her fingernails.

’Ninety-nine percent of the work is done,’ she said, with the air of trying to argue. ‘I just need to finalise delivery of the material and upload it.’

‘And hit the big red launch button.’

‘And that.’

In the corner, Jack shifted his weight and a floorboard creaked. It was enough to remind Brock and Natasha that he was still here. Natasha frowned at him. Jack frowned back and Brock had to shove his face behind his server rack to stop them both from seeing his grin. Natasha and Jack were going to get along _famously_.

‘You kids sure this is a good idea?’

‘Do you seriously think we’re going to take advice from a man who’s killed people in the name of government?’ Natasha said, her Russian accent peeping through as it always did when she got incensed about these things.

‘ _Have_ you killed people?’ Brock asked curiously from the other side of the room.

‘Yeah, a few,’ said Jack, as if describing how many bikes he had in pieces in his workshop.

‘You’re very, what’s the word—’

‘Blasé?’ Natasha supplied.

‘Right, blasé about it.’

‘I did what needed to be done.’ Jack pointed a finger and Natasha and Brock in turn. ‘So that you and your friends can play on the internet.’

‘Kill _me_ ,’ said Natasha, ‘so I don’t have to listen to this rationalisation of state violence.’

Brock stripped down some of his computer gear, found a box for clothes and threw out some old food in the fridge. Natasha and Jack sniped at each other all the while. Later, in the truck, after Brock had said goodbye to Natasha and promised to call, Jack made a humming noise as if he’d just thought of something.

‘What?’ Brock asked.

‘Should take her to the firing range,’ Jack said, ‘I bet she’d be lethal.’

‘Right,’ scoffed Brock, ‘please suggest that to her, I’m sure she’d be thrilled at the idea of you teaching her to shoot stuff.’ Jack gave him a peculiar look, parsing out Brock’s response like he’d said it in a foreign language.

‘What did she do, before moving to the States?’ Jack asked, and Brock shrugged.

‘Oh, she was a student, literature or something. Her dad was some famous computer scientist.’

‘Right,’ said Jack noncommittally, and kept driving.

* * *

Jack’s arms were pinned over his head, Brock’s hands on his wrists. Well - pinned, as far as Brock could ever pin Jack. With another decade of boxing, Brock thought he might be able to give Jack a run for his money in the ring, but right now any control he had was pure artifice. It looked fucking incredible, though. It _felt_ incredible. With his arms up, Jack’s chest arched up, his belly curving into a long, hard, concave line of muscle. The muscles of his arms stood out too, cording down his forearms when he flexed his fingers in Brock’s grip. It felt like a warning: _here is what you are trying to restrain_. Brock shivered.

’Don’t stop, then,’ Jack said breathlessly. Brock had been riding him vigorously, almost hard enough to hurt. He’d paused to commit the view to memory. Jack, impatient, gave a little kick of his hips, just to remind Brock who was really in control. With his thigh muscles burning, Brock sank down on Jack’s cock again, unable to stop the whimper that he breathed out. They’d been at it a while and he was sensitive and tiring. Jack seemed to hear the thought in his head, and with an easy twist of his wrists he slid his arms out from under Brock’s hands and pushed himself up to a sitting position. Bracing himself on his right arm, he wrapped his left over Brock’s back and grabbed Brock’s shoulder for leverage. And fucked him, in hard, short strokes, his mouth on Brock’s neck and jaw. Brock’s hands worked convulsively in Jack’s hair. His cock was shoved up against Jack’s belly and slid all sweat-slick up and down, winding him up until every thrust made Brock pant and gasp.

He felt raw - broken-apart, somehow, peeled - and all he could manage to do was beg Jack in half-swallowed words for more. He bit down on his lip.

‘Christ,’ exhaled Jack on a tight breath, his voice quiet and savage, ‘I could hurt you.’ He sank his teeth into the meat of Brock’s shoulder muscle and Brock cried out, tensed all over. He was so close to coming, so close, his body ached with it. Jack’s fingers had closed on his shoulder when he moaned; now they were digging in, bruising, and Jack was fucking him all mean and demanding. Brock moaned again, squirming in Jack’s lap, his toes curling up. He came in long pulses, a pleasure so deep and satisfying that it made him light-headed. He slumped in Jack’s grip and Jack laughed, and kept fucking him.

‘’S too much,’ Brock mumbled into Jack’s shoulder, ‘please.’ Maybe it was Brock begging, but Jack abruptly tightened his grip on Brock and came with a deep groan that vibrated through Brock.

‘You know I’m not a nice man,’ said Jack after a moment, his lips buzzing against Brock’s ear.

‘Least you don’t lie about that,’ Brock said, not caring, not caring even a little bit - knowing it was reckless and that he’d tell anyone else to walk away immediately. Jack smelled like motor oil and wood chippings today, and it was distracting. That was Brock’s excuse, anyway.

‘Did for a bit.’ Jack yawned, and tipped Brock off his lap so that he bounced down onto the mattress. ‘Fewer reasons to lie now.’ He waved his hand, vaguely implying all the complex machinations of the past few months. No need to explain any further.

‘So you have to keep me,’ Brock said, grinning over at Jack’s sweaty, satisfied face. ‘I know too much about you.’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Jack with mock weariness, but he gave Brock a smile back, the tiniest little smirk. ‘That’ll do, kid.’ He leaned over and switched off the lamp by the bed. It was so quiet out in the country, and all Brock could hear was Jack’s breathing and the occasional faint creak as the house settled. He wormed his way over the bed to lie against Jack’s side, and Jack moved an awkward arm over him, the angle not quite right but neither of them with the energy to move. Jack took a sharp breath in and then said, into the silence, ‘spare room’s empty.’

‘You want me to sleep in the spare room?’ Brock said, confused and expecting— well, something. Hurt.

‘For your computer junk,’ Jack explained. ‘Cancel the lease on that shithole you call an apartment and move in. With me.’

‘Oh,’ said Brock, a lifting feeling coming over him. He curled against Jack’s side and pressed his face against warm skin, imagining doing this every night.

Sooner or later, he supposed, he would have to confess to Jack that they were only 8% compatible. But that could wait. Indefinitely - perhaps forever.

**Author's Note:**

>  _Click_ was posted weekly between 6-12-15 and 14-2-16, and it is now complete! 
> 
> This is the end of the story for Jack and Brock in this 'verse. It's as much of a happy ending as I could reasonably give these two lying, morally-compromised, messed up idiots. It's a pretty terrible model for a healthy relationship, but who knows? Perhaps they'll bring out the best in each other.
> 
> It's been great fun to write. Thanks to everyone who read along each week, and thanks to you too if you've just caught up today. Drop me a comment and tell me what you thought, and come hang out with me [on Tumblr](http://lingua-mortua.tumblr.com).


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